


be my number two

by emorosadiaz



Series: for all the things my hands have held, the best by far is you [4]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Adoptive Parents - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, F/M, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Marriage Proposal, Pregnancy, Prompt Fic, Romance, The Avengers - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-14 22:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 57,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11217450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emorosadiaz/pseuds/emorosadiaz
Summary: A compilation of my prompt-fill Starmora fics from Tumblr!





	1. "Drink this, you'll feel better." + "Don't worry about me."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 18 + 31 starmora!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lil too much fun with this one so beware angst/fluff and a cameo from our fav baby groot :’)))

Apparently, part of destroying “the light” via destroying Ego had more consequences than Peter initially expected.

There was definitely the part about his immortality going away, which, what the _fuck_ , why would Peter want to be immortal _anyway_ , but then there had also been the part about Peter being “just like everyone else,” which was how Peter lived his entire life up until meeting Ego and spending, like, two days with him, so Peter really hadn’t thought much of Ego’s warning.

Then he totally sneezed in Gamora’s face this morning when he woke up and, honestly, he wonders how he’s still alive.

(He’d never seen her look so angry, yet disgusted, at the same time before. It was interesting.)

And now, an hour later, he’s holed up in their shared room, shivering as he’s curled up under covers he never remembered being so _thin_ , and Gamora’s just standing over the bed, staring down at him.

“You’re sick,” she diagnoses.

“Thank you, Doctor Gamora,” Peter quips, sniffling along with his words. “Really, I had no idea.”

Gamora rolls her eyes. “Don’t test me when you can’t fight back.” 

But her voice is teasing, and Peter can’t help but smile a little. “Sure thing. So, _doctor_ , can you cure me?”

“Possibly,” Gamora says. She leans over, placing her hand on Peter’s forehead. “But I’m still concerned about your temperature.”

“’S’fine,” Peter insists through a yawn. His eyes feel really heavy.

“When was the last time you were this sick?”

Honestly? Peter can’t really remember, though he’s not sure if that’s because of the sickness fogging up his brain. So he just shrugs.

Gamora turns as tiny footsteps come from their doorway. Peter watches Gamora crouch down, then stand back up with a bottle containing a red liquid. Then he notices vines coming up the side of the bed as Groot climbs up, looking up at Peter through wide eyes.

“I am Groot,” he says, and his sad tone makes his meaning clear.

“Be careful, Groot,” Gamora advises, placing the bottle on their nightstand. She scoops Groot up in her hands, holding him at a safe distance from the bed. “Peter’s sick, and I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Sorry, buddy,” Peter says, offering Groot a reassuring smile. “But don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Gamora’s gonna take care of me.”

“I am Groot!”

“I know you wanna take care of me, too, but Gamora’s right on this one,” Peter says. “I don’t want you accidentally getting sick from me.”

“I am Groot.”

“I don’t know for sure that you can catch the same sicknesses as Peter,” Gamora says, gently running her thumb down Groot’s back. “But while you’re still little, we don’t want to risk it, okay?”

“I am Groot…”

“Hey, but while I’m down for the count, the others might need extra help with stuff,” Peter says, sitting up a little. “Y’see, I can’t lead the infamous Guardians of the Galaxy from my bed, so y’think you can take over being Star-Lord for a bit?”

“I am Groot?”

“Yes, you get to tell everyone else what to do! It’s fun.”

Peter grins as a small, amused smile forms on Gamora’s face. Groot seems pleased by this, so he nods, his expression suddenly very serious. He looks up at Gamora, who then returns him to the ground so he can run off and fulfill Peter’s mission.

After Groot’s gone, Gamora picks up the bottle and turns her attention back to Peter. “That should keep Groot occupied, though you also may have just created a monster.”

“He’ll have fun.” The image of Groot bossing Rocket and Drax around fills Peter’s mind for a moment. He laughs a little.

“Here. Drink this, you’ll feel better,” Gamora says, carefully pouring a very calculated amount into an empty glass she’d put on the table. She hands it to him. “This is a concoction developed by Kraglin, Drax, and Groot to help you. Kraglin is the most knowledgeable about your physiology since he’s known you the longest, Drax knows some things about medicine from taking care of his daughter, and then Groot added in some herbs he’s learned how to grow recently.”

Peter just blinks at her, then looks at the glass in his hands. “So, basically, you guys all made this up, like, five minutes ago, and it might poison me.”

“It’s not toxic,” Gamora insists.

Whatever. Peter does feel just short of _horrible_ , so he’s willing to try anything at this point. He quickly downs it, not surprised to find it somewhat disgusting in taste. Fortunately, Gamora swaps out his empty glass for one full of water in, like, less than a second, so Peter’s quickly washing the taste out of his mouth.

“There, see? Not toxic,” Gamora says proudly.

He sighs a little as he pulls the water away from his mouth, setting it back on the nightstand. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She looks at him expectantly for several moments. He just watches her in return. Then, “Do you feel better?”

“Uh,” Peter says, sniffling, “on Terra, it takes a while for medicine to kick in. And since I’m full-Terran now, I guess, I’m just gonna have to wait.”

“Oh.” Gamora seems a little disappointed by that, but Peter finds it endearing. She places a hand on the bed. “What else do Terrans do to get better quickly?” 

“Not much besides medicine and sleep,” Peter explains with a cough. “So, yeah, you’re pretty much relieved of your doctor duties.”

But Gamora just continues to stare at him, apparently not about to leave him alone. Peter sighs.

“Look, Gamora, don’t worry about me,” he says. “Really. It’ll be over before you know it. I’ll be back to kicking ass and dancing and all that good stuff soon, ‘kay?”

“Are you sure?” She averts her eyes momentarily, piquing Peter’s interest. “I…know your mother died of a Terran illness, so I just wanted to be sure…”

Something tightens in Peter’s chest at that. He quickly grabs Gamora’s hand, squeezing it. “My mom had a different kind of Terran illness, _much_ worse than this,” he explains. “And, yeah, Ego caused it, so she didn’t _naturally_ get it like I caught this, but, uh…anyway. This is a really common sickness that everyone gets every once in a while there. So, no need to worry.”

Gamora nods, meeting his eyes again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bring up your mother.”

Peter shakes his head. “It’s fine. But, really, thank you for looking out for me. It’s…been a while since someone’s really done it to this extent, I guess.”

“Of course.” She smiles again, letting the last of the sadness fade from her expression.

Then a wave of cold hits Peter before he can reply, causing him to shiver. Gamora leans in more closely, practically _smirking_ now. “I don’t believe I can catch Terran illnesses and you appear to need additional warmth, so…”

“You’re too kind to me,” Peter says loudly, only to be cut off by a cough.

Gamora simply crawls under the covers beside him, wrapping her arms around his midsection. He wraps an arm around her shoulders, resting his head beside hers.

“But if you sneeze on me again, Star-Lord, I _swear_ …”

“I won’t, I won’t! I promise!”

(He manages to keep the promise, surprisingly, though there are at least three close calls.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts at [pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!!


	2. "Be careful."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 99 for starmora please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo someone’s gotta come confiscate baby Groot from me bc like??? I can’t stop including him in these oneshots lmao

Peter carefully tilts the cup of water over the soil in Groot’s pot, moving the cup in a circular motion around Groot to cover as much as possible and avoid over-watering one portion. Groot smiles up at him appreciatively the entire time. 

“I am Groot,” Groot says when Peter’s setting the cup back down on the table.

“Does that feel good?” Peter inquires, leaning back in his seat. He’s gradually getting better at understand Groot’s speech, but he’s not _quite_ there yet. But Groot nods happily, waving his little arms about. “Yeah, buddy, since it’s just you and me tonight, we’re gonna have a dance party! How’s that sound?”

“I am Groot!” Groot seems to approve as he continues his little dance. Peter hadn’t ever expected to find a kindred spirit in Groot’s younger form, as he hadn’t known the fully grown Groot all that well before Ronan happened, but Peter’s glad they could really get to know each other now.

“Quill!” Rocket approaches them then, looking between Peter and Groot. “Did ya water Groot?”

“Just did,” Peter answers.

“Okay. Just don’t forget t’add some of that special growing fertilizer stuff we got back on Xandar. It’s good for Groot’s growth.”

“I am Groot.”

“What do you mean it’s ‘gross’? It goes through your roots, not your mouth, dummy. Since when have your roots had tastebuds?” Rocket says, but Peter can hear the affection within his voice. “Quill, don’t forget.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Try not to get in any fights this time.”

Rocket flicks his ears, amused. “I think th’real concern should be makin’ sure Drax doesn’t pull any stupid shit again, like the last time he did when we were here, callin’ Ronan an’ all that. What an idiot.”

“Yeah, try to prevent that.” Peter looks above Rocket as Gamora walks toward them.

“Speakin’ of the big idiot, I’m gonna go see if he’s ready t’leave yet or not,” Rocket says, looking between Peter and Gamora. He does a weird… _winking_ thing in Peter’s direction, but leaves before Peter can question him.

“Hey,” Gamora says, stopping in front of Peter and Groot. She apparently missed Rocket’s wink (or just ignored it altogether, because she just doesn’t question most of the quirky things that the Guardians do anymore, from what Peter’s observed). “I know you gave us a list, but I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else you needed from the shops.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Peter says, glancing at Groot. “Groot?”

Groot shakes his head. Gamora smiles, bending down toward Groot and gently running her thumb over his small cheek. He leans into her touch with an even bigger smile than before.

“I don’t plan on us staying out too late,” Gamora says. “We’ll be back before you know it.” 

“Yeah, I’m not sure all the people on Knowhere have forgiven us for what happened the _last_ time we were here,” Peter jokes, though, in all honesty, it’s a fairly well-grounded concern. Gamora frowns in agreement.

“Well, there will definitely be no bar stops this time,” Gamora reassures Peter.

But Peter can’t help the uneasiness in his chest. Aside from all the drama in the bar, there had been the trip to visit the Collector, plus the aforementioned fight with Ronan’s troops after Drax’s call, and now Peter’s picturing Gamora’s body floating through space and he barely reaches her in time and— 

“Be careful,” Peter cuts his own thoughts off, somewhat surprising himself with his choice of words. This is _Gamora_ he’s talking to; if anything, it’s usually the other way around, with her warning his stupid ass against jumping head-first into danger.

And she seems just as surprised as him, staring at him for a few moments with confusion etched over her features, but she nods. “Of course. I will keep your team safe, Star-Lord.” 

He smirks at that. “Thanks. And don’t hesitate to call—“ 

“—If anything happens, yes.” She pulls her hand back from Groot to place it on Peter’s shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. “Don’t worry about us. Besides, I heard you and Groot have a night of fun planned.”

“I am Groot!” Groot interjects happily. Peter laughs a bit. 

“Yeah. We’re gonna make our way through the second tape, I think,” Peter says. Of course, he’s listened to the entire thing by now, but never in one sitting with Groot.

“Honestly?” Gamora conspiratorially looks to Groot. “That sounds more fun than my night.”

Groot beams at that, reaching his small arms up toward her. She meets his hands with her index finger after retracting her hand from Peter’s shoulder.

“Alright, Gamora!” Rocket calls from the ramp. “Drax is finally ready, after makin’ us wait an entire freakin’ century.”

“I do not believe one hundred years have passed since we first landed, creature.”

“Whatever! Just get the hell outta here already so we can go!”

“Time to go,” Gamora says, rolling her eyes. She gently pulls her finger away from Groot, who waves as she steps away. She waves back. “We’ll see you two later.” 

“Keep the others in line for me!” Peter reminds teasingly.

“Gamora! Hurry the hell up!” 

“I’m _coming_ , Rocket!”

After that, they’re off the ship. Peter turns his attention back to Groot with a grin. “So, buddy, dance time?”

Groot looks at him with an expression Peter hasn’t seen before. “I am Groot.”

Though Peter doesn’t completely understand Groot’s words, he’s pretty sure Groot isn’t talking about their dance party. But Groot looks in the direction Gamora had just walked away in and Peter figures it out pretty quickly.

“Gamora?”

“I am Groot.” Groot turns his sharp eyes back to Peter.

Peter sighs, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar before dinner. “That obvious, huh?”

Groot nods.

“Maybe someday, buddy. For now, it’s just something unspoken, y’know?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> send me prompts over at [pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	3. "It's okay. I couldn't sleep anyway."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rose-demica: Ooooh, can i pick number 16 please?? I'm really enjoying all the starmora stuff you're reblogging!! It's an awesome ship!! I am totally on board. :) and baby groot is too adorable! Especially with parents Starmora and big brothers drax and rocket. Its one big happy family :) most the time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for some starmora playing never have I ever!!!!! ;))))

Gamora curses under her breath as she trips over one of Rocket’s guns. Though Peter is one of the messiest people she’s ever known, Rocket has managed to top him several times, leaving random parts and half-completed weapons strewn about the ship. She’s tried talking to him about it before, as has Peter, but Rocket claims he suffers from “selective hearing.”

Though she narrowly avoids falling, it’s still made a noise loud enough to wake the others up. And, sure enough, Peter comes clambering into the room just moments later.

“Gamora? Are you okay?” he asks, surprisingly coherent for someone who should have just been asleep. “What happened?”

“I tripped,” she says simply, gesturing to Rocket’s stuff. “Rocket left his guns out. Again.”

Peter sighs, placing his hands on his hips in that are-you-kidding-me-I-told-you-to-clean-up-your-shit way. “Of course he did.”

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she says, carefully sliding Rocket’s weapons closer to the wall with her foot.

“Why are you out here, anyway?”

“Just wanted to get out of my room for a bit and clear my head, that’s all.”

“In the middle of the night?”

She shrugs.

He doesn’t push the issue. “It’s okay. I couldn’t sleep, anyway.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They fall into silence at that. Out of all the Guardians, Gamora feels closest to Peter, but something about discussing nightmares just feels a little too intimate to her. 

(She has a feeling she’s not the only one struggling with that.)

“I think we’re all a bit shaken up after what, uh, happened with Ronan,” he says, offering her an out.

She takes it. “It’ll heal with time.”

Peter nods, walking by Gamora to take a seat at the table. “Well, since it looks like neither of us will be getting any sleep tonight, might as well hang out.”

He looks at her hopefully. Part of her wants to run, because she fears what will happen if she allows herself to continue down this path, letting Peter a little more into her heart with each step. It’s been a long time since she’s really had _any_ kind of relationship with anyone.

But, screw it, it’s the middle of the night, and like Peter said, she won’t be able to get any more sleep tonight, anyway.

So she sits down in the seat beside him. “What do you suggest we do to pass the time?”

“Hmm…Oh, I know!” He looks at her, clearly excited. “We can play a game!”

She looks at him curiously. “What kind of game?”

“It’s this game people played on Terra,” he says. “It’s called ‘Never Have I Ever.’”

Sounds interesting enough. “How do you play?”

He holds up his hands. “So we each start out with ten points. You use your fingers to keep track of how many points you have left.”

She mimics him. “How do you lose points?”

“We take turns saying things that we’ve never done,” he explains. “And if you’ve done the thing the other person says they’ve never done, you have to put one of your fingers down. So, for example, if you said, ‘Never have I ever been to Knowhere!’ I’d have to put one of my fingers down, since I’ve been there. Then I only have nine points left.”

“And whoever loses all their points first loses, I assume?”

“Yeah! You’ve got it.” Peter smiles and, for a moment, Gamora’s heart does a weird… _fluttering_ thing. She decides to ignore it, returning his smile. He puts all of his fingers back up. “Okay, I’ll start. Never have I ever broken my leg.”

She puts a finger down. “Never have I ever owned a ship.”

“Damn. You got me,” he says, shaking his head as he puts his thumb down. “Okay, well. Never have I ever finished school.”

“How does Terran school work?”

“You usually go from when you’re five years old until you’re eighteen,” he says. “Which, basically means, from when you’re a little kid until you’re considered an adult, though most people do even more school after they turn eighteen. I was only in school for, like, four years.”

“I was educated until I was a young adult,” she states, putting one of her fingers down. “Never have I ever shaved my face.”

“Never have I ever shaved my legs.”

She doesn’t put a finger down.

“Seriously?”

“I’ve never needed to.” She shrugs. “Cybernetic enhancements, and all.”

“Right.”

Unfortunately, Gamora realizes she’s running out of ideas. Her background differs from Peter’s in a lot of cultural ways, it’s hard to think of opportunities or activities they would have both had.  

Well, of course, unless she takes it in a more _personal_ direction…

“Never have I ever been to Terra.”

She watches him process her words, gauging his reaction. Terra is, understandably, a sensitive topic for him.

But he doesn’t appear to take it personally. “That was dirty,” he comments simply, putting a finger down. He mirrors her cautious expression. “Time to fight fire with fire. Never have I ever been to…” he pauses. “Where are you from, anyway?”

Her heart practically skips a beat at his words. It’s been a long time since she’s thought of her home planet, before Thanos entered her life and took everything she knew away. Faded images briefly cross her mind, of parents who loved her, of friends who played with her, of a life full of fun.

And in this moment of pause, Peter retreats. “Uh, actually, never mind. I’ll come up with another—“

“Zen-Whoberi,” Gamora answers softly. She carefully puts one of her fingers down. 

“Zen-Whoberi,” he repeats, seemingly testing the name.

They fall into a bit of an awkward silence at that, each averting their eyes. Though part of her is instinctively defensive at the mention of her home planet, the rest of her is surprisingly content with Peter now knowing that detail about her.

“Never have I ever been on a team before,” she suddenly says, resuming their game. “I’ve worked with others on missions before, but not…like this.”

“The Ravagers don’t really count as a team, in my opinion,” he insists, keeping his remaining fingers up. “So I’ve never done that either. Never have I ever…had a father.”

She puts a finger down. “I’m not counting Thanos.”

“Didn’t think so.” He presses his lips together thoughtfully. “What, um…was your real dad like?”

Pain claws at her for a moment, but she finds herself smiling at the happy memories she’s fought to preserve. “He was both compassionate and brave. He’d call me a fighter, and tell me that I should always use my skills for good.”

“He sounds awesome,” Peter says. “I’m sorry about what happened to him.”

“Though it is a wound that can never fully heal, it’s in the past,” Gamora reassures him. “I’m sure you understand, with your mother.”

“Yeah. She was perfect.” His hands fall into his lap, seemingly broadcasting the end of the game. “Y’know, even with all the differences between our upbringings, I’m starting to find a lot of it’s the same.”

She also lowers her hands.

“We started out with having people who loved us from the get-go, then had to watch them die, then were kidnapped by strangers from different planets, then were raised by said strangers to do bad shit, then got out to go make money for ourselves by stealing an orb,” he lists, almost _amused_. “This is freaky.”

Now that Peter was pointing it out…she’s surprised she hadn’t noticed it before. Before, she’d only ever considered Nebula to have some understanding of what her life was like, and even though Peter’s circumstances were still very different from hers, there were a lot of feelings they both knew.

Like the pain of witnessing the death of a parent, or the liberating experience of taking control of their own lives. Of course, Yondu is much, _much_ different than Thanos in that Gamora can sense the hidden, but strong, affectionate bond between Yondu and Peter, but it doesn’t change the feelings of grief and estrangement that accompanied both of their experiences.

Peter laughs to himself a bit. “And here I thought I’d never find someone who I could relate to.”

Gamora lays a hand over one of his. “You’re not alone anymore.”

“Neither are you,” he returns warmly. “We should hang out together like this in the middle of the night more often.”

“We may be able to defeat powerful beings like Ronan, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep, Star-Lord.”

The name always gets him. She’s noticed his little reactions to it, whenever she says it teasingly. Even now, he does a little smile that always makes _her_ smile.

“Let’s just play a new game to stay awake! Ever heard of ‘Two Truths and a Lie’?”

He’s looking at her expectantly, and—oh, shit, _fucking_ —

She’s identified what exactly that weird heart-fluttering-thing in her chest is.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	4. “Pull over. Let me drive for a while.” + “Drive safely.” + “Is your seatbelt on?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grootiez: Can u do 80, 28, and 1 with Starlord, Gamora and Baby Groot going on a road trip?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg this one turned out super long, hope you enjoy it!!!

“Ha! Did’ya see that guy’s face when I hit him over th’head?” Rocket barks out a laugh, looking up at Drax. “He looked so _stupid!_ ”

“He was not expecting your attack,” Drax replies, just as joyous. 

“Oh, oh, or how about when…”

Peter tunes out Rocket and Drax’s conversation as they return to the Milano. Though Rocket’s boasting tends to include exaggerated summaries of the events of their missions, this assignment had proven to be a big win for the team. They’d successfully apprehended some of Thanos’ goons for a bounty placed on them by the planet’s government without any major problems or explosions (Peter is _especially_ grateful for that one) in half the time they’d expected the operation to take.

“An’ now we got all this extra downtime and extra money!” Rocket yells, bringing Peter’s attention back to him and the others.

“I am Groot!” Groot cheers from his place on Rocket’s shoulder.

“We should take advantage of this,” Drax suggests. “It is not often we finish a mission this prosperously.”

“I think we can afford to take a short break,” Gamora agrees, looking to Peter for approval. She’s become something like a second-in-command (or, really, _honestly_ , his co-leader of the team) lately.

Anyway, they’ve been working a little harder than usual lately, trying to get back into the groove of things since everything with Ego and Yondu happened a couple months prior. The idea of some vacation time honestly sounds like a _godsend_ to Peter.

“Alright, let’s take a few days, maybe three or four, tops,” Peter decides, looking at each of his friends. “I think if we stayed on the Milano or the Quadrant any longer, we’d go stir-crazy.” 

“I vote we put the extra money to good use at the nearest bar,” Rocket says, lifting his paw.

“You’re going to spend your entire break at a bar?” Gamora raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Not the _entire_ break, maybe just a li’l part of every day,” Rocket insists.

“I am Groot!” Groot looks up at everyone hopefully.

“What the hell? _No_ , you cannot come with us to a bar!” Rocket declares, looking at Groot in disbelief. “You’re too young!”

“A bar is not a suitable place for a child,” Drax says solemnly.

“I am Groot…”

“One of us will stay with you while the others go out, stop mopin’, Groot,” Rocket says.

Groot frowns.

“I’ll stay with you, Groot,” Gamora says, crouching down to Rocket’s height. Groot jumps from Rocket’s shoulder to Gamora’s outreached hand, looking up at her. “I, personally, don’t want to spend three days in a row at a bar.”

“Everyone can do whatever they want, so long as it’s legal,” Peter announces, trying to placate everyone. “The bar isn’t mandatory.”

“Suit yourself.” Rocket shrugs. “Drax?”

“I’ll accompany you, creature.”

And that settles things. Within ten minutes, Rocket and Drax exit the Milano in search of the nearest bar. Peter watches them as they leave. Gamora, with Groot sitting on her shoulder, comes to stand beside him.

“You’re not going with them?” she inquires.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m not really in a bar mood. More in a relaxing mood, y’know?”

“This planet is far too beautiful to spend all our time on it inside of a bar,” she says. Though they’ve never traveled here before, Peter’s often heard of its amazing sights, which reminded him of the National Parks like Yosemite back on Earth.

“Yeah.” Peter sighs. “I heard there’s a nice beach only a couple hours away from here, too. If only we had…”

Gamora looks up at him in an _are-you-serious_ way.

“Wait. We _do_ have time!”

“You _did_ declare time for a vacation for the team,” she reminds him.

“Right, right…Okay, it’s settled.” Peter nods. “Road trip, first thing tomorrow!”

As he celebrates the idea with a loud, “Wooohooo!”, Gamora looks to Groot and asks, “What’s a road trip?”

* * *

“Please don’t kill Groot with your driving,” is Rocket’s way of seeing them off the next morning.

“Gee, how about a ‘drive safely,’ or, ‘I’ll miss you guys,’ or, ‘can’t wait until you come back,’?” Peter retorts, rolling his eyes as he finishes packing. He slings his backpack over his shoulders.

“You’re right, I’m sorry, that was impolite of me,” Rocket says, though Peter knows not to expect much from his tone. “What I meant was please feel free not to come back for a week so we can have a longer break.”

“I am Groot,” Groot insists from where he’s sitting on Gamora’s bag, off to the side.

“I would _not_ get lonely!” Rocket insists. 

“I am Groot.”

“Y’know what? I take it back. Quill, please kill Groot with your driving.”

“No one’s killing anyone with their driving,” Gamora says as she enters the room, holding up her communication device. “I’ll have this with me so you and Drax can contact us in case anything happens.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen,” Rocket insists.

“The last time you said that, something blew up,” Peter says.

“That was _one_ time!” Rocket protests.

“You nearly got into a fight at the bar last night,” Drax recalls. “You told a man his head was shaped like a fruit, and then he—“

“Ugh, _fine_ , we’ll be good!” Rocket cuts him off. “Now just leave already, ya two love birds.”

“Gladly,” Peter says, picking up Groot, who climbs up onto his shoulder. Gamora picks up her bag and comes to stand beside him.

“ _Please_ stay out of trouble, _seriously_ ,” she practically _begs_ Drax and Rocket. “And call us if anything—“

“—happens, yes, I know, I’ll let ya know if Ronan comes back from the flarkin’ dead to get revenge,” Rocket says, rolling his eyes. “Drive safe, or whatever.”

“Drive safely,” Drax echoes more earnestly, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Yeah, uh, thanks,” Peter says, nodding. “We should be back in two days.”

* * *

The cars on this planet remind Peter of the ones back on Earth, but more hi-tech. Though he never learned how to drive there (his sixteenth birthday was spent very far away from Earth, after all), he’s learned enough from his time on different planets over the years.

So after about five minutes of bickering over who has more driving experience, which led to asking Groot to choose who should drive for them, they’re on the road, Peter behind the wheel and Gamora in the passenger seat with Groot perched on her shoulder, mesmerized while watching the quickly passing scenery out the window.

A new song comes on the car’s stereo from his Zune, which Peter had managed to hook up via a cord he found lying around the Milano (this must be what everyone on Earth uses to play music now in the car, he thinks).

Gamora looks over at him. “What’s this song?”

“’Tiny Dancer,’ Elton John, 1971,” Peter recites. “My mom and I didn’t listen to it much, but it’s a pretty cool song.”

It fits their current setting, in a way. Something about the song just fits with driving on what’s basically a freeway.

“Back on Terra, we’d drive to get everywhere,” he suddenly says, thinking of the days spent just driving down the rural roads of Missouri with his mom, singing along to every song on the radio. Though she’d be driving, she often danced, too, which isn’t the _safest_ thing to do when driving (well, technically, you shouldn’t be doing anything else besides driving while driving, Peter figures), but the roads never had too much traffic for it to be a problem. “Everyone would learn to drive when they’re a teenager. Or, well, that part of life when you aren’t quite an adult, but you’re not a kid anymore, either.”

“Which is why you never properly learned.”

“Learn by doing, as they say.”

She smiles at that, looking out at the road in front of them. “I didn’t travel much as a child,” she says. “On my home planet, everything we needed was in walking distance.”

“I’m jealous,” he admits. “I’d much rather have walked to school than take the bus every day. It was basically this really big car that could fit a bunch of kids, so it would pick up all the kids at different places to take us all to school. Kids on there could really be assholes.”

“I struck fear into bullies’ hearts,” she says proudly.

He rolls his eyes. “Of course you did.”

Their conversation mainly consists of childhood memories and discourse on whatever song came on via his Zune’s shuffle. Some they’d recognize instantly, and brought to mind specific memories of time spent with the Guardians, while others are judged for whether or not they’d dance to it.

(More often than not, the answer is yes.) 

“I like this U2,” Gamora says after another U2 song finishes.

“Yeah, they were just getting big around the time Yondu picked me up,” Peter says, checking over his shoulder before changing lanes. “I wonder whatever happened to them.”

She studies him for a moment. “Have you ever thought about returning to Terra?”

He’s caught off guard by her question. Of course, it’d crossed his mind more often than not over the years, especially in the time just after Yondu first grabbed him. But, as time faded, and the grief over his mother’s death set in more permanently within him, he found himself preferring outer space.

“I used to a lot when I was a kid,” he finally answers. “Not so much anymore. It just kinda pales in comparison to other planets, y’know?”

“Even though it’s your heritage?”

Months ago, he would’ve gotten defensive over questioning like this coming from _anyone_ , even Gamora. But now?

He glances over at her, meeting her eyes for a moment. There’s no judgment there—after all, he actually has a home planet to go back to, while he’s well aware of the state of Gamora’s former home and lack of life left on it, so it’d make sense for Gamora to envy him or just feel hostile toward him, in a way. But there’s none of that; she’s simply curious, in a way that he knows is out of her own concern for him.

He turns his eyes back to the road ahead of them with a shrug. “It’s still my heritage, but shit happened there that just kinda spoiled it forever. I mean, _maybe_ I’ll change my mind and return someday, but for now…”

She nods, accepting his answer. “I’ll support you either way.”

Of course she will, because she’s _Gamora_. Peter smiles at her. “Thanks.”

She points to a place where they can exit the road ahead. “Pull over. Let me drive for a while. We should be halfway there by now.”

Following her gaze, he spots what appears to be the equivalent of a freeway exit, with a rest stop and a place to eat. “You sure? I can keep driving, I don’t mind.”

“I am Groot,” Groot says before Gamora can reply. His eyes are on the front windshield now, rather than the passenger side window, and he points a finger toward the exit.

“You’re hungry?” Peter asks for confirmation. “Still don’t understand how trees get hungry…or can digest food.”

Groot nods.

“Well, guess we’re stopping either way.”

* * *

Stomachs filled, they pile back into the car, this time with Gamora behind the wheel and Peter in the passenger seat. Groot settles into his usual spot on Peter’s shoulder.

“If you get tired you can sit on my leg,” Peter reminds Groot, making eye contact with him in the side mirror. “Or the cup holder, I guess.”

“I am Groot.”

“Okay, no cup holder then, that’s fine.”

“Is your seatbelt on?” Gamora asks absentmindedly while buckling in herself.

“Was that directed at me or Groot?” Peter jokes.

“Both.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He buckles in.

“Good.” She starts driving then, pulling out of the parking lot.

“T-minus two hours until we get to our destination,” Peter announces, plugging his Zune back in and scrolling through the songs. “Any music requests?”

“You pick,” she says, picking up speed as they’re back on the freeway-road-thing.

He smirks, halting his scrolling as he comes across just the right song. He clicks on it, and as the familiar chords fill the car, Gamora actually _laughs_ and Peter’s convinced it’s the most precious thing he’s ever heard.

“Are you trying to tell me something with this song, Star-Lord?” she teases.

“What can I say?” he says, all too casually. “I fooled around and fell in love, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to add in some team fam love by having rocket and drax say “drive safely” and gamora partially directing “is your seatbelt on?” to groot ;))) also, snuck in a reference to my fav band in there, heh
> 
> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	5. "I love you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 100 for a Starmora marriage proposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need to stop posting these in the middle of the night but I also just wanted to share this fluffy angst with the starmora world so badly so,,, enjoy!!!

Gamora feels like shit.

Typically, she refuses to admit that kind of thing, even to herself in the privacy of her mind, but given the circumstances, she thinks she deserves a little leniency. Thanos has been looming over her head for months now, the threats implied by his presence bringing back nightmares she’d finally manage to overcome during her time with the Guardians (who, surprisingly, make her feel safe in a way she hasn’t in a very, very long time). Their most recent fight was rough, like, _seriously_ rough, because Thanos’ people know her and her weaknesses, after helping groom her into the deadly assassin she once was.

The fight left her sick (toxins specifically targeting her species) and broken (cybernetic enhancements not doing their jobs anymore) and, honestly, she’s not even sure how she made it out alive. It could’ve been _days_ , for all she knows, since everything happened, as she’s only now just waking up.

Aside from that, what she _does_ know is that she’s in a dark hospital room in Nova Corps, it’s nighttime judging by the view outside her window, and Peter’s hunched over in a plastic chair next to her bed, his head resting on his arms on beside her thighs the bed as he snores softly. She smiles a little bit at the sight, letting it distract her from the dull pain present in seemingly every part of her body. 

The other Guardians are absent, but she’s not surprised; they’ve always respected her relationship with Peter during critical moments like these (during any other time, though, they like to tease and mock in that “loving” way). She cards her fingers through his messy curls with a relieved sigh, resting her head and back against her reclined bed.

Peter stirs at that, turning his head up so he can look at her. He blinks sleepily, as if he can’t quite make out what he’s seeing. “G’mora?”

“Hi,” she manages softly. 

Her hand stalls in his hair. He smiles, and she’s just noticing the redness under his tired eyes. 

“You’re awake,” he says, his voice cracking at the end as he raises his head. She moves her hand to cup his cheek. He leans into the touch. “You scared us so _bad_ , Gamora.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, covering her hand with his. “I’m just glad you’re okay. Oh, God, I’m _so_ glad you’re okay…”

They sit in a comfortable silence for a couple moments then, simply just looking at each other. Gamora’s too overcome with emotion to speak, mentally reflecting on how far they’ve managed to come in the years since they met each other. Together, they defeated Ronan, then Ego, then countless other “baddies” (as Peter liked to call them) in the time since. They raised a tree. They embarked on an adventure of “firsts” together (again, Peter’s terminology) as a couple, dancing through the constant obstacles the galaxy would happily throw in their way.

But, here they are now, on the other side of all those hopeless situations, even one that left Gamora fighting to her last breath. 

She’s pulled out of her thoughts when she notices a tear escape Peter’s eye. She gently brushes it away with her thumb. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.” 

“Yeah. Guess I missed out on collecting on your life insurance.”

“Are the others alright?”

He nods. “They’re all fine. They’ve just been pretty shaken up about your condition; it was touch and go for a while, but…”

“But I’m here now,” she quickly reassures him.

“You’re here now,” he echoes, gently prying her hand off of his face and cradling it between both of his. He stands up from his chair, opting to instead sit on the bed beside her legs. He leans down, gently kissing a non-bandaged part of her forehead and whispering, “Don’t leave me.”

“I don’t intend to,” she whispers back, meeting his eyes. “That’s why I want to finish this fight with Thanos as soon as we can, so we can all move on with our lives together without having to fear him.”

He pauses, pressing his lips together. She recognizes his expression as one of hesitation, typically before he’s about to ask her something meaningful.

Then, “Do you want to be together forever?” 

She looks at him, confused by his wording, but he continues, “I mean, I don’t know how many different Terran songs and dance moves there are out there, but if there’s an eternity’s worth, you’re the person I’d want to try to discover them all with. Among other things, of course, like saving the galaxy every time a new all-powerful villain enters the picture, or even just collecting bounties on dumb criminals for the Nova Corps, or even just retiring to some random planet where we just do touristy shit all the time, or whatever. I just want to keep doing all of that, with you, forever…”

He trails off, looking at her with a mixture of uncertainty and hope. She blinks.

“Peter…are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?”

“Depends what you think I’m asking,” he answers, his tone just as surprised as hers. “All I know is I love you so much that it, like, actually _hurts_ sometimes, and whenever shit like this happens, I feel like I’d die if you died, which kind of makes sense because our whole team is somewhat codependent on each other in a way, you and I _especially_ —not that that’s a bad thing, of course, I’m proud of the strength of our relationship—and…” he pauses, looking a little flustered. “Okay, I kinda lost my train of thought there.”

She tries as much as she can to sit up, but the moment she starts moving her head forward, pain explodes in her chest and he reacts quickly, leaning in and placing a hand behind her head, gently easing her back against the pillow.

“Careful, babe, you were _seriously_ hurt,” he murmurs, combing a hand through her hair. “You’re gonna have to stay put like this for a while.”

The absurdity of the situation actually makes her _laugh_. Her smile widens when she notices the way it brightens his expression. “Peter, if you’re asking what I think you’re asking, the answer is yes.”

“Really?”

“Maybe you should try asking the regular way, just to make sure,” she teases.

“Uh, if I get down on one knee down on the ground, you won’t really be able to see,” he points out. “…Or is that just a Terran thing?”

“Just _ask_ ,” she repeats, more impatiently.

“Okay, okay,” Peter says with a laugh, taking her hands in his and squeezing them gently. “Gamora, after all this craziness is over and Thanos is dead and gone and we can just go back to some semblance of normalcy, whatever the hell that means in a family like ours, will you please marry me?”

Briefly, Gamora remembers the time spent as a little girl admiring her parents’ strong relationship, wondering who she’d experience that same love with. When Thanos had taken her, those dreams had been crushed quickly, replaced with machinery and a new “purpose” for living.

But now, she’s past that, and come back to where she began, hopeful and curious.

So, she takes a deep breath, smiling, despite the pain holding her body back from embracing Peter, and nods.

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!! :)))


	6. “Can I have this dance?” + “Did you get my letter?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 47 +14 for starmora!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is. just angst. literally, it’s angst, and the only reason there’s fluff at the end is because of the “can I have this dance?” part of the prompt haha rip. think of this one as a prequel kinda to [my last oneshot](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/post/161447038326/47-14-for-starmora)

“You were so _reckless_ , like, I can’t even believe it, because you’re supposed to be the _smart_ one, preventing the rest of _us_ from killing ourselves out there—“

Gamora sighs, slumping a bit where she’s sitting on the bed. “Are you done?”

“As a matter of fact, I’m _not_ , because I’m in charge of making sure my team doesn’t die in _dumb ways_ , but then you run off to deal with the biggest, baddest threat to the entire universe _ever_ , not even trusting your own _teammates_ to have your back!” Peter shakes his head in exasperation as he paces back and forth in front of her, gesturing wildly with his hands.

“You know that’s not what this is about—“

“How the hell would I know, because if you actually _died_ out there, then there’d be no way for me to know!”

“Peter,” she says calmly, slowly, “Thanos is _my_ fight—“

“He’s threatening the same galaxy that I live in, y’know—“

“I knew he would come after the team so I was going to handle it on my own—“

“That’s not _fair_ , and you _know_ it, Gamora—“

“Yes, we’ve always helped each other, but my problems are _different_ —“

“No, they’re not!” Peter exclaims, throwing his hands up. “Maybe we weren’t all trained to be assassins by people who surgically implanted cybernetic enhancements in us, but some of us also lost our parents to crazy, power-hungry dudes who tried to be our dads, which resulted in us losing our childhood lives and homes.” He stops to catch his breath, staring directly into her eyes. “I know of at least _one_ person who gets it, who gets _you_ , so he understands why you felt the need to go off on your own to handle it, but he doesn’t understand why you _actually_ did it.”

Gamora presses her lips together. “Did you get my letter?”

“Of course,” he says quietly. He sticks a hand into his jacket and pulls out a folded piece of paper with “Peter” written on the outside. It looks a little worse for wear now, probably from the fight earlier when Peter had led the rest of the team to help her defeat some of Thanos’ forces and put an end to her recent rogue adventures. He holds the paper up delicately between his fingers, despite visibly seething. “So, yes, technically, I understand why, but I don’t understand _why_.”

She doesn’t respond.

He sighs. “I probably read this letter more times in two days than I read my favorite book as a kid with my mom on Terra in eight years.”

“I just wanted you to know, to maybe understand…if we never got to…”

As she trails off, Peter steps closer to her. “Stop saying that, stop acting like this is the end.”

“But it’s _Thanos_ , Peter,” Gamora insists, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “I first ran away years ago already knowing it would probably end in my death. I’d never intended for it to include anyone else.”

He sets the letter back in his pocket and gently takes her hands in his, pulling her up to stand with him. “But if we work together, like we always do—“

She shakes her head, her eyes glossy and a lump forming in her throat. “I still don’t think it’s possible.”

“Well, with an attitude like that,” he attempts to joke, but she shakes her head again.

“If you think it was easy for me to leave you all, you’re wrong,” she states, her voice regaining some strength. She pulls her hands away from his, turning away. “You all lost one friend. I lost four.”

He doesn’t respond at first, and Gamora wonders if she took it too far. She forces herself to get over it, because, really, when it comes to Thanos, she’d happily lay her life down to stop him and protect her friends, her _family_. She’s not about to drag them into _her_ mess.

“Dear Peter, I wish things didn’t have to be this way, but I’m afraid I have no other choice.”

She turns at his voice to find him looking at her with a crestfallen expression.

“You’re probably confused about my behavior lately, including why I’ve written you a letter, of all things,” he continues reciting, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m sorry for being distant and cold. I wish I could be brave, like you, persisting after a lifetime of grief, but I can’t. My nightmares have returned and I don’t know how else to stop them. I know Thanos. I know his game. It’s my sole responsibility to see the mission through and stop him before he can destroy the universe, before he can destroy you and the others.

“You all taught me hope and love after so many years of loneliness and sorrow. I couldn’t be more grateful. I’m still proud that I’ve had the chance to be surrounded by friends, through the good times and the bad. And, of course, there’s you, Peter, who’s managed to teach me so many things about life, friendship, and a different kind of love from the others. Never doubt how much I love you. It’s because I love you I must do this. Take care of the others for me. Take care of Groot, even though he’s nearly full-grown now.

“If we do not meet again in this life, I look forward to when we are reunited in the stars. Love, Gamora.” He takes a deep breath upon finishing, looking at her pointedly. “Do you believe me now when I say I pored over that thing?”

She feels just as rattled by her words as he appears to be. She steps closer to him. “I never doubted it. I meant every word when I wrote it.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he insists tearfully. “You stood by me against my evil, universe-destroying dad, without even batting an _eye_ , and I know you’d do it all over again if you had to. Why can’t I do the same for you?”

Really, when he puts it that way, she falters in crafting an effective counterargument. Tears well up in her eyes and she lets out a shuddering breath, exposing the anxiety that’s been eating her alive since everything had gone to shit recently. She struggles for words, opening her mouth and shaking her head. “I’m not…I’m not _used_ to someone loving me enough to do that.”

Her voice sounds embarrassingly pitiful, echoing the fear Thanos had instilled in her at a young age. She hasn’t broken down like this in a long time—years, perhaps—and she wants nothing more than to just crawl into some dark hole, never to be seen again, if only to save herself the humiliation of losing her cool like this, after acting like she had some sort of control over everything. (Again, she envies Peter’s bravery in his ability to be so optimistic, despite the world constantly ending around him.)

But Peter’s never judged her, and that doesn’t change now. He holds her hand, using his other hand to cup her cheek. “Hey, hey, breathe, babe. You need air to keep arguing with me.”

She can’t help the little strange gasp that’s supposed to be a laugh that comes out at his words, the corners of her lips twitching up. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I mean, life is really shitty right now, so that’s not okay, but it’s okay to be upset by everything and be a little vulnerable,” he says. “Of course, that’s almost just as scary as Thanos, probably, but I’d probably be confused if you weren’t really upset about all of this, y’know?”

“You should be mad at me,” she protests.

“Uh, did you miss my whole spiel earlier? I was pretty pissed, and even though I still am a little, I love you more than how much I’m mad for you, if that makes sense? Like, the love is trumping the anger. Anyway, I’m just glad you’re back, is what I’m trying to say, and I hope you’re not planning on running away again, because then I’m just gonna sic the team on you when we get you back again, and they’re probably going to yell and swear more than me.”

“Even Groot?”

“Even Groot. Haven’t you _heard_ the mouth on him? We really should do something about his language.”

She wipes the last of her tears away with the back of her hand. “But who taught him those words, hm?”

“Rocket,” Peter insists. “ _Definitely_ not me.”

“Whatever you say, Star-Lord.”

He smiles, pulling her in closer and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “In all seriousness, though, please don’t run away and go rogue again.”

“I won’t,” she whispers, meeting his eyes.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

At that, he pulls her into a hug, just holding her. She wraps her arms around his back, resting her face against his shoulder and closing her eyes, inhaling his familiar scent. As worried as she still feels over Thanos swooping in and taking them away from her, she feels a tranquility she hasn’t felt in weeks, feeling her heartbeat slow considerably. Though she still believes protecting Peter and the others is the right thing to do, she knows she can’t bear to pull the disappearing act again. It’s not fair to any of them, even if staying endangers them a bit more.

A gentle knock, accompanied by a soft “I am Groot,” comes from the door. Peter looks up. “It’s open, Groot.”

As the door opens, Groot pokes his head in. He’s practically back to his original size now and hardly fits through doorways. He looks concerned. “I am Groot?”

Gamora smiles. “I’m fine now, Groot,” she says, pulling away from Peter enough to look at Groot. “Thank you for helping me and bringing me back.”

“I am Groot.”

“You think music will help cheer everyone up?” Peter echoes. Groot nods with a smile. “Great idea, buddy. Can you go ask Kraglin to hook up the Zune to the Quadrant’s speakers? You can pick the song.”

Groot nods again, closing the door and walking away.

“Which song do you think he’ll choose?” Gamora asks, turning to Peter.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

The answer comes about a minute later, when the first chords of “Bring it on Home to Me” fill the room. Peter laughs as Gamora rolls her eyes, amused.

“I _may_ have told Groot about what happened on Ego’s planet,” Peter admits, shifting his hands to take one of hers and hold onto her hip. “Can I have this dance?”

Gamora wraps her arm around Peter’s back and gently squeezes his hand. “You can.”

With that, they start swaying carefully, and Gamora breathes a sigh of relief. Her problems are far from solved now, but Peter’s words restore the hope Thanos had managed to squash recently.

She can do this. _They_ can do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!
> 
> also I’m sorry for the angst but it’s ok cuz the oneshot that takes place after this one ends happily…..sorta


	7. “Sorry I’m late.” + “It doesn’t bother me.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ohlala-bitch: Can you do 13+85 with starmora, please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally my wifi is working again so I can post this one. I toyed around with the prompt and twisted it in a way you might not have expected ;))) hope you enjoy!!!!

It’s been just about thirty years since he’s been on Earth, Peter realizes as he sits down at a table in McDonald’s, Gamora sliding down into the seat across from him. Everything is so much different now from what Peter remembers. Hell, even _McDonald’s_ has changed, now occupying a space in practically every single block from what he’s seen while wandering around with Gamora.

She curiously pulls down on the draw strings of the huge, black sweatshirt he bought for the sole purpose of disguising her alien-ness—“I ♥ NY” is printed in big, obnoxious, white letters on the front—and the hood tightens around her face. Peter offers her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. 

“So, uh, yeah,” he says. “This is Earth.”

“It’s…interesting,” she comments, crossing her arms on the table. The long sleeves of the sweatshirt hang off her arms, completely covering her hands. “The fashion is quite interesting.”

“That was the only size they had left!”

“Interesting, but not uncomfortable,” she amends.

They fall into silence then, waiting for the number of their order to be called. Though the silence is far from awkward (they’ve long since mastered the art of “comfortable silence” in the years they’ve been together), Peter knows there’s a fair amount of anxiety between them. Being back on Earth is horrifying enough for him, but the reason why has Gamora constantly looking over her shoulders at _least_ once a minute, as if Thanos himself would just pop out of the Happy Meal toy display.

“What do you think of the Avengers so far?” he eventually asks when Gamora looks around them for the millionth time.

“I don’t doubt that they’d make good allies, but against _Thanos_ …” she trails off with a sigh. “Except the Asgardian, perhaps. Thor? And the one with the Infinity Stone.”

“Yeah, they don’t have much experience with space stuff,” he agrees. “But I think if we all work together, we can do it.”

Their number gets called then. Peter gets up and walks over to the counter, accepting the tray containing their food. It’s only been a couple of days since they arrived on Earth, so he hasn’t had a chance to try _that_ much food yet, but he’s certain it’s changed. Even just looking down at their food now, he’s surprised by how much more greasy it looks than he remembers from the ‘80s.

When he sits down, Gamora’s engaged in a staring contest with some man off in the corner. She glares at him until he eventually relents, turning his attention back to his copy of _The New York Times_. Gamora scoffs proudly, turning her attention back to Peter.

“Everything okay over here?” he asks, opening their fries and McNuggets.

“It’s fine,” she reassures him, pulling her sleeves back just enough to uncover her hands.

He sighs, opening his barbecue sauce. “Yeah, Terrans aren’t exactly used to people from space. Aliens.” He gestures vaguely to her with his hand. “They like to stare.”

“I’m used to that on _any_ planet,” she points out, trying a fry. She bites off a small amount and chews slowly. When she swallows, she looks down at their food. “Terran food is quite unhealthy.”

“Yeah…that’s also changed since I was a kid,” he says, dipping a nugget in barbecue sauce. “Terrans are pretty weird. And kind of backwards.”

She smirks a bit, looking at him with that playful glint in her eyes while copying him in dipping one of her nuggets into his barbecue sauce. “It doesn’t bother me.”

Admittedly, Peter’s always envisioned any return trip he’d make to Earth would be alone, without Gamora and the others, not only because they’d all stick out like a sore thumb, but because of how strange and emotional of an experience it would be for him. But now, hearing Gamora’s teasing and watching her eat McDonald’s while wearing such obnoxiously _Terran_ clothes…well.

He’s _so_ glad he didn’t come back alone.

* * *

Later, Peter’s convinced he accidentally poisoned Gamora with the McDonald’s, because she’s been acting strange ever since.

After they returned to Avengers Tower, she’s more on edge than she has been the past couple of days with all the talk of Thanos. She’s more quiet during their discussions, after being one of the most vocal of the Guardians in all the past meetings, considering she knows Thanos personally.

Eventually she runs off with Natasha Romanoff and Pepper Potts to Lord knows where when no one’s paying attention. Peter knows he shouldn’t worry—after all, they have far _bigger_ problems to worry about, with Thanos and the possibly pending destruction of the universe—but he can’t help but find Gamora’s behavior strange. It’s not that Peter doesn’t _want_ her to become friends with the others, but she seemed very disinterested until now.

And then he catches her eye from across the room when she returns, finally, and she averts her eyes.

Yeah. Okay. _Something_ is wrong.

He confronts her later that night, when everyone’s retired to their rooms to get some sleep. They have no idea when Thanos will come _exactly_ , but they’ve estimated it to be any day now, so everyone needs to be in top shape at all times.

Gamora’s drying her hair with her towel, sitting on the edge of the bed, when Peter turns over and faces her back.

“Is everything okay?” he asks directly, because he knows her as well as she knows him, and they’ve stopped dancing around (not _literally_ ) touchy subjects between the two of them a while ago, knowing that direct communication will get the job done more quickly and more effectively. “You were acting a little weird earlier, when we were with the Avengers. Did McDonald’s make you sick?”

She sighs, turning to look at him. Her hands and towel fall into her lap. “No, I’m not sick, but I know I was acting strange.”

“There are a lot of things going on right now,” he admits. “A lot of _weird_ things.”

“Yeah.”

He sits up then, coming closer to her. “Can we talk about it?”

She doesn’t answer at first, simply staring at him with an expression Peter’s come to learn as _bad, bad, bad, something bad is about to happen, and it’s time to break the news—_

“Sorry.” She presses her lips together, her eyes searching his. “I’m…late.”

He blinks.

She blinks.

He blinks again, before his face screws up in what he’s sure looks like the _stupidest_ expression ever. “…What?”

“My cycle,” she states simply. “I’m late.”

“Your cycle, as in your…” He does the mental calculations for a few moments, then puts the whole thing together. “Oh, _oh_. Wait… _what?_ ”

“ _Peter_ ,” she says, exasperated, “do you not understand how biology works? It’s because we—“

“Yes, okay, _yes_ , I _get it_ ,” he cuts her off, still looking at her stupidly. “But you’re telling me that you—that we— _you’re_ —“

He can’t get the word out, but she nods, her eyes almost as wide as his. “Yeah. I think so.”

Now it all makes sense, the uneasiness, the going off with Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanoff, who also have _certain_ body parts that allow them to do _certain_ things.

Like have babies.

“ _Now?_ ” he practically _squeaks_ out, shaking his head in disbelief. “You mean, right before we’re off to the big, final battle for the universe? _Really?_ ”

She nods.

“Oh. Well.” He manages a bit of breathy laughter. “Timing never _has_ been our strong suit…”

“Peter…” she says softly, grabbing one of his hands. “Do you…want this?”

“Um…it depends,” he answers with uncertainty, “as in, do _you_ want this? Since you’re gonna be the one who has to deal with all the stuff that comes with it for, like, nine months…wait, do Zen-Whoberi people carry babies for nine months like Terrans do?”

She _laughs_. “Peter, of course I want this. I never thought I could have it, and for a long time, I didn’t _really_ want it, but now, with you…” she trails off, smiling. “I want this.”

“Okay. Good. Because I was gonna say I wanted it, too.”

They both descend into laughter at that, embracing each other happily and attacking each other with kisses.

For a few minutes, they can pretend to be blissfully ignorant.

They can be completely, unabashedly, selfishly happy.

They don’t have to think about why they’re on Terra, what they’re preparing themselves for, the _risk_ they’re taking by proceeding forward.

That can all wait until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	8. "Stay there. I'm coming to get you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: could I request #83 of the ways to say I love you one? For starmora, ofc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh??? I went into this one with no plan and just kinda let it write itself. hope you find the results Interesting !!!! (also I like writing vulnerable gamora recently asdfghjkl;’ I’m Sorry)

Gamora’s never envied Nebula for her extensive cybernetic enhancements. Of course, Gamora has more than a fair share of machinery whirring within her body as well, but not quite to the extent of Nebula, who was _completely_ replaced with enhancements. So, even though Gamora can still best Nebula in combat (except _once_ —Ego’s planet, but _whatever_ ), Nebula’s got the advantage when it comes to getting back up on her feet after a pretty hefty injury, since her body parts all just click back into place within moments of being broken.

Then Gamora hisses in pain as she just _barely_ moves her body, her leg sending a wave of pain through her entire body that nearly knocks her unconscious.

Yeah, she _really_ hates Nebula right now.

“ _Shit_ , Gamora,” Rocket comments, looking at her in disbelief. “That’s a nasty break.”

“I noticed,” she manages through gritted teeth.

Groot’s standing next to her broken leg, first looking up at her with wide, sad eyes, then turning back to her leg. He makes a move to poke it, but Rocket grabs him before he can touch it.

“No, Groot, we don’t touch broken limbs!” Rocket chastises, setting Groot on his shoulder. “And unless Gamora can walk on this thing, we’re gonna have to wait for some backup, ‘cause there’s no way in hell I can carry her.”

They’re in the middle of a heist for some precious artifact that was stolen from the Nova Corps. The team split up into two—as part of the plan—with Gamora and Rocket in charge of extracting the object while Peter and Drax take care of the guards. 

But then one thing leads to another in their ultimate descent from a well-planned mission to a disastrous one, per usual: an overabundance of enemy forces, a lack of care for being stealthy (Drax gets overexcited sometimes), a typical Rocket explosion (“What? They were totally gonna _kill_ us!”), and the team _still_ being separated, despite having supposed to have rendezvoused by now.

And Rocket’s “little” (according to him) explosion? Gamora barely made it out of the way in time, but then the floor collapsed beneath her, Rocket, and Groot, and they fell down to the next level, where a large piece of concrete with Gamora’s name on it came after her leg with a passion.

Rocket managed to get it off her, but her leg’s busted and even just the _thought_ of moving is enough to make Gamora feel sick, but she ignores it.

“It’s fine,” she quips while Rocket fiddles with his comms, trying to reconnect with Peter and Drax. “I’ve had worse.”

Rocket scoffs. “I don’t doubt it, but that doesn’t make this time any less crappy.”

That’s as close to outright sympathy as Rocket would offer, Gamora is aware, but she doesn’t really care either way. It’s just a broken leg, after all. She starts trying to push herself up to her feet (or, at least, her _good_ foot).

“I am Groot!” Groot calls out, concerned, when she stops not even halfway to getting up, because, okay, _maybe_ she’s a little over her head this time.

“I’m okay, Groot,” she reassures him, carefully directing her voice away from the pain she can feel crawling up into it. “You don’t have to worry.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Rocket says, looking down at his comms. “I’m gonna call Quill to come down and get us, because there’s no way I’m strong enough to carry you.”

“I don’t need to be—“

“Quill?” Rocket cuts her off, speaking into his device. “Can you hear me?”

 _“Rocket?”_ Peter’s voice comes through moments later. _“Where are you guys?”_

“All three of us are down on the sublevel. We fell through th’floor,” Rocket says, looking up at the hole from which they fell. Gamora resists the urge to roll her eyes; after all, _Rocket_ had been the one to cause the explosion and get them stuck down here in the first place. “Gamora’s leg is busted. We need an extraction.”

_“Her leg? What—“_

Peter’s cut off by some gunfire and a loud battle cry—“Drax,” Gamora and Rocket identify simultaneously—before he can finish his question.

“Just get your ass down here, Star-Munch,” Rocket says. “I got the artifact, so we’re good to go.”

_“Is Gamora okay?”_

“She’s still alive. Here, I’ll prove it to ya.” Rocket turns his attention back to Gamora. “Gamora, are you dead?”

_“Rocket! Is she—”_

“Just talk to her yourself!” Rocket finally gives up, handing Gamora (who’s long since given up on standing up, and has returned to just sitting with her leg awkwardly sticking out) the device.

“I’m fine, Peter,” Gamora says. “Don’t worry.”

_“Are you sure you’re fine? What happened to your leg?”_

“Broken,” she answers with a shrug.

_“Stay there. I’m coming to get you.”_

“We weren’t plannin’ on movin’, anyway,” Rocket says, leaning toward the device. “There’s no way in hell I can carry Gamora.”

“I don’t _need_ to be _carried_ ,” Gamora protests.

_“Just hang tight! We’ll be down in a few minutes.”_

And that’s that. Gamora hands the device back to Rocket, in exchange for Groot, who replaces the device’s spot in Gamora’s hand. She sets him down on her lap. He looks up at her sadly.

“Peter’s on his way,” she tries to reassure him. “We’ll be back on the ship soon.”

“I am Groot.”

“He’s more worried about your leg,” Rocket translates.

“I am Groot.”

“He wishes your arms and legs would just grow back whenever they get broken, like his do.”

“I am Groot.”

“It’s probably a lot less painful than waiting for it t’heal.” Rocket puts his comms back in his pack, sitting down beside Gamora and Groot. “I don’t think you’ll be on your feet for a while.”

“My body heals quickly,” Gamora reminds him. “Thanks to my cybernetic enhancements.”

“Either way, Quill’s still probably gonna freak,” Rocket jokes with a flick of his ears.

“He worries easily.”

“Specifically when it comes to _you_.”

Rocket points at her, but Gamora tries to play it off with a (half-hearted) shrug. “I can take care of myself.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Let ‘im worry over you, it’s his way of showing that he cares,” Rocket says. “And the entire d’ast _galaxy_ knows he cares a lot about you.”

Ever since she admitted to feeling the same “unspoken thing” as Peter, things had gotten…a _little_ weird, specifically within the team. There are a lot of emotions going through them at the moment, of course: grief from Yondu, anxiety from Ego, and a general need to frantically put all the pieces back together as quickly as possibly to somehow return to normalcy.

But in a team like theirs, well, normalcy’s practically _unheard_ of.

And, of course, there’s this new thing between her and Peter—the feelings aren’t new, but the open acknowledgement of them is, as is everyone else’s reactions to it—and Gamora’s certain that nobody’s really on the same page at the moment.

“You two can be pretty nauseating t’be around,” Rocket continues, but there’s no hostility or disapproval in his voice. “But, hey, if you’re happy.”

Now it’s his turn to shrug, and Gamora can’t help but stare. “You don’t mind Peter and I…?”

She trails off, because she’s not exactly sure what the word for it _is_. Back when it was unspoken, it was just that: wordless, abstract. Now Gamora’s not exactly sure how to make it spoken, because the first words that come to mind—a relationship, courting, dating, what have you—don’t really seem to fit.

“I’d rather you two acknowledge your sexual tension rather than puttin’ the _rest_ of us through it,” Rocket insists. “Consider it my blessing.”

“I am Groot.” 

“Groot also approves,” Rocket explains.

“I am Groot.”

“Whoa, I’m not sure if I’d call it _love_ yet, Groot,” Rocket corrects. Gamora tries to ignore the heat that rises to her cheeks at Groot’s idea. “They need time t’figure things out before they call it love, or whatever.”

“Thank you, Rocket,” Gamora says softly. She pokes Groot’s back with her index finger, looking down at him. “You, too, Groot.”

Groot beams up at her. Rocket scoffs. “Whatever. Just…keep the d’ast sexual tension—and actual sex—away from the rest of us.”

Before Gamora can reply, Peter calls down to them from above. He’s looking down at him through the hole in the ceiling. “There you guys are! I’m coming down!”

“Took ya long enough, asshole!” Rocket calls back as Peter puts on an aero rig and flies down to them.

“Blame Drax,” Peter grumbles, landing beside them. “He refused to leave without every guard down and no stones left unturned.”

“We didn’t turn any stones!” Drax protests from above.

“ _Metaphor_ , Drax!” Peter calls back.

“What a bunch a’idiots,” Rocket mutters, shaking his head.

“Can you and Drax bring the ship over here for an extraction?” Peter asks.

“Yeah, sure, whatever, since you asked so nicely,” Rocket says, activating his aero rig. Gamora hands Groot over to him. As Groot settles on Rocket’s shoulder, Rocket flies up to Drax. “We’ll be back in a few.”

“Hey,” Peter greets, kneeling down beside Gamora. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Gamora responds, just as she had to Rocket. “I’ve had worse.”

“How exactly did this happen?”

“Ask _Rocket_.”

“Not my fault!” Rocket calls from above.

“Whatever, that doesn’t matter,” Peter dismisses, shaking his head as he places an arm around Gamora’s shoulders and another under her legs. “This is already going to be tricky enough.”

Gamora’s a trouper, per usual, simply grunting as Peter helps her stand up. She leans heavily on him, feeling more disoriented than she’d anticipated, but Peter’s got a firm grasp on her. 

“Easy, easy,” Peter murmurs when she sways. “Let me just carry you.”

Part of her wants to object, but she recalls Rocket’s advice.

Let Peter take care of her.

So she goes along with it—not that she has much willpower to protest at this point, anyway, because her vision’s swimming, her leg feels just short of _horrible_ , and… _is the room spinning?_ —and loops her arms around Peter’s neck. On his count, she manages a small jump to help him lift her legs up into her arms.

“We’ll be back to the ship in no time,” he reassures her, flying up toward the hole. “Then we’re going straight to a doctor.”

She sighs, resting her head against his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for being so cooperative,” he teases. “This is a lot easier than I expected.”

“I take back my gratitude,” she quips, rolling her eyes. She can hear his laughter from his chest.

“Sure you do,” Peter says sarcastically, landing on the ground and walking toward the exit.

Gamora just rolls her eyes, silently appreciating the quiet, private moment. Maybe Rocket had been onto something when he’d suggested her letting Peter do this, letting herself be vulnerable with him; he’s been vulnerable with her plenty of times before, so there’s no reason she can’t expect the same from him. This experience leaves her trusting Peter even _more_.

(Rocket gives surprisingly good advice.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	9. "You're important, too."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: #86 from One Hundred Ways to Say ‘I Love You’ for Starmora please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, the one where peter and gamora have made it through the honeymoon phase and have to evaluate whether or not they’re strong enough to actually work out in the long run ;))) yay, angst lmao

Peter fucked up.

Though he may not as easily admit to others, he recognizes, within himself, that he’s somewhat at fault for the fight that had transpired between him and Gamora earlier. They’d been out on a mission that, of course, spun out of control and led to a shoot-out with some (surprisingly organized) thugs, which resulted in everyone returning to the Milano a little worse for wear.

By the time they’d later returned to the Quadrant, Peter realized he was a _bit_ more injured than he’d initially thought (or let on to the others), and when he attempted to downplay it, all hell broke loose.

Specifically, between him and Gamora.

Their fights are known for being epic among the team, as Peter often considers Gamora his rival in stubbornness. They’re two individuals with a death wish for the sake of protecting their loved ones; the moment one of them calls the other out on it, since it sometimes leads to dumb decisions on the battlefield, things go awry between them for a few days.

But now things are different, which Peter knows is why Gamora was so quick to react negatively this time. Ego isn’t _quite_ a distant memory for them yet, and neither is Peter and Gamora’s “unspoken thing” making its way to the realm of open, honest acknowledgement. What once felt like a dream now feels like the cold claws of reality trying to rip them apart.

Basically, a lot of weird things and feelings are happening within the team right now, and Peter’s not really sure what to do about it.

So, rather than sleep on it, like Gamora had advised him too after grumpily treating the deep blaster graze on his arm (yet, her hands remained as careful and delicate as ever throughout the procedure, though she was _thrilled_ to give him an earful the entire time), Peter decides to wander around the Quadrant with his Zune, just thinking over things.

He turns the corner toward the cockpit, deciding the best place to space out is, well, where he can see _space_. 

Then the pilot’s chair swivels toward him to reveal— _of freakin’ course_ —Gamora.

Though Peter’s somewhat startled, he’s not surprised. He pulls the earbuds out of his ears. “Hey.” 

She presses her lips together. “Why aren’t you asleep? Your arm—“

“—is fine,” he finishes for her, even moving it a bit to show her. (He regrets it immediately, wincing a bit as it falls back into place, but he tries to internalize it as much as poss—okay, nope, Gamora _definitely_ noticed, _dammit_.) “I just needed to mellow out for a bit. Why aren’t _you_ asleep?”

“I just wanted to check on things.” She crosses her arms over her chest in her typical Gamora-fashion.

“Isn’t it Kraglin’s shift tonight?”

“I took over for him.”

He pauses, studying her for a moment. “Why?”

She shrugs, rotating the chair back to facing the front of the ship.

That’s about as good of an answer he knows he’ll get out of her for that, so he decides to let go of it for now. He’s too busy taking in her appearance, anyway; her eyes look heavier than usual, her hair dangerously close to looking straight-up _disheveled_ , which is enough for him to identify _something_ is wrong.

The answer’s obvious, though. He walks up to the chair, standing beside her. “So…this is the most we’ve exchanged words since earlier, so I’m assuming the silent treatment is over?” 

She glares up at him, but it’s noticeably softer than hours before. “You say that as if I was the only participant.” 

And she’s not wrong; he’d been holding up his end of the stubborn silence just as much as she had for the past several hours. He sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

When she doesn’t respond, he continues, “We equally held up our ends in the silent treatment. There, I acknowledged it. Can we move past it now?”

But she shakes her head, her steely expression finally crumbling a bit. “I don’t know, Peter. I’m not sure this is a good idea anymore.”

“The silent treatment is always a _horrible_ idea—“

“No, I mean, _this_ ,” she says vaguely, gesturing between them. “Us, our unspoken-but-now-spoken thing, the guy and the girl and the…TV ratings? Either way, every time we have an argument…”

She trails off, but he understands where she’s coming from. Honestly, he thought finally beginning a “relationship”—or whatever they are now—would prevent them from having these stupid squabbles like they’ve had since day one.

But, of course, that’s not the case. They’re still Peter and Gamora, just now together in a _unit_. That hasn’t changed their individual selves and personalities, which meant they’d inevitably remain on somewhat of a collision course over certain things.

And Peter draws further upon his extended knowledge of Terran TV programming for an explanation. “We’re out of the honeymoon phase.”

Confusion replaces the sadness and frustration in Gamora’s expression. “The _what?_ ” 

“On Terra, after people get married, they go on a special vacation alone to celebrate called a ‘honeymoon.’ Since they _just_ got married, they’re so busy being happy and stuff to really notice any big problems that they’ll probably end up facing later in their marriage,” he explains. “So when two people are dating, or courting, or _whatever_ , there’s this part in the beginning, right after they first got together, where it feels like everything’s perfect, nothing could go wrong, things _will_ for sure improve, but…” He gestures between them, as she had moments before. “Then it eventually ends because the reality that, hey, you’re still not going to always get along with this person and agree with them on _everything_ , inevitably sets in.”

Just as it has now.

“So, yeah, we’ve finally come face-to-face with the reality that us being together isn’t the perfect endgame to every problem, I guess,” he continues carefully.

(He tries to ignore the nervousness expanding in his chest at the direction the conversation’s going, because, honestly, despite their epic argument earlier, he’s somewhat convinced himself that being with Gamora is one of the coolest things _ever_ , but it’s because he respects her that he can’t force her to feel the same way.)

(Because if she wants to call it quits…he respects her too much to stop her.)

She considers his words for several, silent moments.

“So…we are no longer as perfect of a couple as we initially believed ourselves to be.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “This is usually the make-it-or-break-it part of the relationship. At least, that’s what’d happened on TV. This is when people figure out if they should stay together.” 

“Have you figured the answer out for yourself yet?” she asks.

“I…have,” he replies cautiously, trying to gauge her response. “And you…?”

“I have.” She stands up then, grasping his hands and pulling him closer to her. “I want to keep fighting.”

“You want us to keep _arguing_ forever?”  

“No, not like that,” she corrects with a small smile. “I want to keep fighting to stay with you, which means persevering in a galaxy that occasionally seems to want us dead.”

He laughs and squeezes her hands, feeling his muscles relax and heartbeat slow. “Oh, _good_ , I was a little worried there for a sec.”

“If we _are_ going to be in a…’relationship,’ or what have you, now, we should probably try to resolve our arguments more efficiently,” she says softly. “We should talk about what happened earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your injury?” she asks, her tone careful to exclude anger. 

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal?” he tries, but she maintains her hard, calculated gaze. “Well, okay, _yes_ , I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but that’s ‘cause before…before _Ego_ happened, it wouldn’t have been, since I was still part…well, you know.”

And that’s the ugly, terrifying truth Peter’s been trying to evade for hours now. Before they killed Ego and he was still part-Celestial, Peter _had_ actually been able to escape serious injury a _lot_ more easily. He’d recover quickly enough for injuries (like the one he’d suffered today) to practically disappear _overnight_.

But now he’s “normal,” or whatever, which has now knocked him down a few pegs, physically speaking.

He briefly recalls his argument with Gamora back on Ego’s planet, and judging by her thoughtful expression, he has a feeling she is, too, especially when the first thing she says is, “I never thought of you as the ‘weak link,’ or anything of the sort. More physically disadvantaged than the rest of us, perhaps, because of your Terran background, but never _weak_.”

“I’m sorry I said all those things,” he murmurs, feeling guilt claw at his heart. Their fight on Ego’s planet had been one of their ugliest, but their usual post-argument routine (which typically consisted of the silent treatment, snide comments, disagreeing on literally _everything else_ , or any combination of all of the above) had been skipped entirely because the next thing Peter knew, he was being used as a battery for Ego.

“It’s okay,” she reassures him. “Ego is, actually, part of the reason I reacted the way I did earlier as well. It’s just…I almost lost you back there, on Ego’s planet, and I just haven’t been able to shake this _fear_ —“

Days after the events on Ego’s planet had taken place, Gamora had briefly mentioned what had happened when Mantis actually managed to touch her, how it had woken up a fear that she’d managed to bury so deeply for so long. But ever since Mantis’ touch, coupled with everything that had happened back there, Gamora’s been a bit more shaken up than usual.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Peter reassures her when she never picks the sentence back up.

“It’s childish,” Gamora insists quietly, almost ashamed. “It’s not important.” 

“But _you’re_ important, Gamora,” he reminds her, releasing her hands so he can embrace her. “Not only to me, but to everyone else on this ship. Your feelings matter.” 

She hugs him back, breathing a sigh into his shoulder. “You’re important, too, Peter. That’s why I get upset when you downplay things like this.”

“Well, I’ll try to work on that,” he says earnestly, because, honestly? Gamora deserves the effort, so he’s willing to try. “You’re right. This honest communication thing works a lot better than the silent treatment.” 

She laughs at that. “Thank you, Peter.”

He breaks the hug then, meeting her eyes. “Can you work on something for me, too?”

“Yes?”

“Just letting me know when you’re… _upset_ ,” he says. “Whenever you’re sad or scared or whatever, you can talk to me about it. I _want_ to be there for you, because you’re always there for me.”

“I’ll try,” she murmurs, a bit uncertainly, but he knows her, and Gamora _never_ puts less than 100% effort into anything she does. He trusts her.

“We’ve successfully survived past the honeymoon phase!” he announces. She smiles at that, but rolls her eyes when his attempt to raise his arms in a true _victory_ pose ends abruptly with a string of muttered curses over the pain.

“Can you _please_ go sleep off your injury now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)


	10. "They grow up so fast."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 101. for starmora pls!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when your life is so out of control that you’re posting the next ficlet at 3 am again lmao so sorry guys,,, anyway, enjoy some starmora parenting reflections while they do the dishes!! (bc I’m a slut for domestic shit asfglknf)

“ _We_ are Groot.”

Peter actually _drops_ the plate he’s washing when he hears the words, the dish making a loud _klank_ as it hits the bottom of the sink. The water continues running over Peter’s soap-covered hands, but he’s too busy staring wide-eyed at Groot, who’s standing on the other side of the table, to take notice.

He briefly glances at Gamora, who _was_ collecting the rest of the dishes, but has also stopped and opted to instead stare at Groot. He’s just calmly looking at the two of them with his gentle smile, handing Gamora his and Rocket’s plates.

“You…remember that still?” Peter questions because, honestly, he’s never really understood how Groot’s memory worked. Sometimes, it was apparent that he still remembered everything from his life before the battle with Ronan, but most times, Groot acted like the age he physically appeared to be. “You can still say that?”

But now, nearly three years later, Groot’s practically back to his full size. 

Groot nods. “I am Groot.”

“Teamwork is good, yeah,” Peter says. “Not sure if the teamwork required for doing the dishes is worth an epic ‘ _we_ are Groot,’ though.” 

“Thank you for your help, Groot,” Gamora says softly, taking the dishes from Groot’s hands. “Peter and I have the rest of it handled. You can go.” 

“I am Groot,” he says, bidding them farewell with a wave—Peter and Gamora both wave back, per usual, because some things just _never_ change, no matter how much time passes—before leaving the room completely.

Gamora brings the plates up to the counter beside the sink and Peter sighs, shaking his head as he picks up the plate and resumes scrubbing it. “Well, that was interesting.”

“I knew he remembered the battle and what happened to him,” Gamora says, switching to Peter’s other side and picking up the dishrag. “But that was the only other time he said ‘ _we_ ’…” 

“Glad to know I’m not the only one who was a _little_ caught off guard there,” Peter says lightly, passing the clean plate to Gamora to dry. “I guess I just…kinda blocked that memory out, while Groot was little.”

“I did, too,” she admits, running the towel over the plate. “All it seemed to do was give Groot nightmares.” 

There had been a good handful of nights in which Peter had awoken to rushed, tiny footsteps accompanied by a flurry of knocks on his door. He’d then open the door to reveal an upset Groot, small tears running down his bark as he babbled about bad dreams where he or members of the team got hurt.

(Peter can even recall an entire week straight spent with Groot nestled between him and Gamora in the captain’s quarters, because of a recurring dream about Ronan where Groot couldn’t save everyone in time.)

“At least he seems to have grown out of it,” Peter says, absentmindedly continuing to clean. “Well. He seems to have just fully grown _up_ , at this point.” 

He sees Gamora nod in his peripheral vision, but as she starts putting the dishes away, her actions slow. She eventually turns her eyes up to his. “Does it feel _strange_ to you at all?” 

“Strange?” he echoes, handing her a fork. “I mean, I guess it’s weird, because it feels like it went by _really_ fast.”

“Sometimes, I almost wish he was _small_ again,” she admits, drying the fork. “I mean, it’s impractical for the team, as well as his own safety, but…” she trails off, pausing her drying completely. “It was nice, in a way.”

“It definitely _really_ enforced the idea of us being a big family,” he says, glancing at her. “It brought out the best in everyone, in a way, because we all had to watch out for the little guy.”

She laughs softly. “It felt like we were _parents_.”

“It _still_ feels like we’re parents,” he corrects, shaking his head in exasperation, because he’s _certain_ he’ll have to scold _someone_ at some point during the rest of the day for doing something stupid. “They grow up so fast.”

They finish the rest of the dishes off in a contemplative, comfortable silence. Peter really hasn’t thought much about Groot growing up until now. He calls upon personal familial experience for some sort of reference to what he’s feeling now: with Yondu, things had been complicated until the very end, though Yondu never stopped looking over him, even from a distance, when Peter had finally left; with Peter’s actual mother, well, she’d never even gotten the _chance_ to see him grow up.

He helps Gamora put the last of the dishes away. She watches him stretch his arms up to the highest shelf in the cabinet, handing him the last of the plates, when she opens the discussion again. “Have you ever thought about parenthood?”

The question catches him by nearly as much surprise as Groot’s remark earlier. Peter narrowly avoids knocking down what dishes are already in the cabinet down, onto his head, before turning to look at Gamora with a nervous flutter in his chest. “Um…not much, to be honest…”

That is, he _really_ hadn’t thought about it, until Gamora had danced her way into his life and he found himself looking after little Groot with her.

“I think the _real_ question here is,” he continues, regaining some confidence, “now that we’ve actually dipped our toes into the ocean of parenthood, did we each like it enough to ever do it again, but more traditionally?”

She ducks her head to hide her smile at that, but Peter can still see the corners of her lips pointing upward. “I suppose that _is_ , indeed, the real question.” 

“Before the Guardians, my answer would’ve been a hard no,” he admits. “But now, after I’ve had to coax a baby tree to sleep more times than I’d like to count…” He shrugs. “I dunno. Doesn’t sound as impossible or really _out there_ , y’know?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, meeting his eyes.

“What about you, babe?” he asks, closing up the cabinet. “Have you ever thought about it?”

Gamora holds her arms out on either side of her, looking more _unsure_ than Peter’s seen in a long time. She takes a few steps away from him, as if the idea is too large to be contained in an intimate conversation between the two of them. She turns back to look at him. “As a child, I wanted nothing more than to excel at everything, be this _warrior_. But when I was forced down that path, in a way I hadn’t anticipated or wanted, and everything changed, I lost sight of myself and my goals.”

Peter nods along to her words. They’ve both been _significantly_ more open with each other in the past year or two about their pasts, especially their childhoods—both before and after their worlds were both turned upside down by the untimely deaths of their parents—and aspirations.

Her hands fall back down to her sides. “I suppose…things like parenthood are, as you said, no longer out of reach.”

He smiles then, coming closer to her and taking her hands in his. “There’s no rush.”

“No rush,” she agrees. “We still have many adventures to go on, Star-Lord.”

She leans up toward him then, placing a quick kiss on his lips, as if to seal their bounded fate.

Maybe they’ll find themselves on a path similar to the experience of raising Groot someday, or maybe not. There’s still time, and, as Gamora said, they have much to do. After all, Thanos is still out there, and Peter knows that until that’s dealt with, Gamora can never truly, completely relax as the rest of them can.

A crash from another room interrupts their silent moment, followed by Drax and Rocket arguing. Mantis is laughing. Groot chimes in with an “I am Groot.”

Peter and Gamora sigh, simultaneously.

“Shall we go check on the kiddos?” he teases.

“Better do it now than when Rocket accidentally blows up the ship,” she jokes back.

They leave the kitchen, hand-in-hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)


	11. "I think you're beautiful."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 150 starmora baby bump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t sure which list this was supposed to be from bc you said 150 (which isn’t a number on either list) so I just went with this one !!! we’ll be crossing into starmora baby/family fluff territory pretty soon, bc I got a couple more prompts about it! so this one’s kinda short bc I wanted to save more of the baby/fam hype for laterrrr

Gamora turns over in the bed, only to then turn back over to her other side. Feeling unsatisfied with that position, she turns over _again_. She gives it a few moments before sighing loudly and preparing herself to flop over yet again—

“Babe, are you okay?” Peter mumbles sleepily beside her, his face half-pressed into the pillow. His eyes remain closed as she turns to look at him. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just having trouble getting comfortable,” she replies, turning to face him. He opens his eyes.

“Is our little guy kicking up a storm again?” he asks, reaching a hand out between them to touch Gamora’s stomach. “Chill out, tiny dancer.”

“There’s no kicking, I just feel a little restless,” she reassures him. “But I still feel exhausted, at the same time.”

“I think pregnancy just does all kinds of weird shit to your body,” he says, reaching under her sleep shirt to rub her belly. “At least, that’s what my mom told me when I’d ask about it. I’m not sure how different it is for you.”

“The physiology of our races are quite similar,” she says. “And I remember some of the things my mother would tell me as well, but they’re childhood memories, like yours.”

“Look at us, two orphaned kids about to have our own kid,” he jokes. “This is exciting, but a little terrifying.” 

“Agreed.” She leans closer to him and he readjusts himself, wrapping an arm around her. She curls into him, laying her head over his chest. “As terrifying as it is, I hope the child comes soon, because I’m not sure how much longer I can keep them in here.”

“Yeah, your bump’s gotten so _big_ ,” he comments, and she doesn’t need to look up at him to know that he’s wearing a wide-eyed expression. “Oh, uh, I mean, I think you’re beautiful! You’re still very beautiful!”

She laughs, closing her eyes against him. “Thank you, Peter, but I don’t think that ever changed.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he concedes, holding her more tightly. “There’s something even _more_ beautiful about you now, in a way. You’re literally carrying a _kid_. And not just any kid, _our_ kid.”

“They’re going to be a very interesting child,” she says with a sigh. For probably at _least_ the millionth time, she tries to visualize their child, questioning what features they will inherit from who.

And that’s not even accounting for their future personality, which, given the often conflicting personalities of Peter and herself, a mixture of the two is bound to be _fairly_ interesting.

“I hope they’re more like you,” Peter murmurs as he absentmindedly runs a hand up and down Gamora’s back. “The universe could use some more Gamoras running around.”

“You think so?”

“I’m sure it’s preferable over more _me_ ,” he admits.

“I wouldn’t mind more you,” she says.

“Aw, that was so cute, babe.”

“I’ll just say I’ve picked up a thing or two in the art of flirting in the last few years, thanks to someone,” she teases. “In all seriousness, I’ll be pleased however this child turns out.”

“Me, too,” he agrees. “Are you still guessing it’s a girl?”

She nods. “Mother’s intuition, as they say.”

“Well, y’know, the _sperm_ is what determines the gender.”

“Then what’s _your_ guess?”

“Hmm…” They’ve had this conversation at least a dozen times by now, and Peter changes his answer nearly every time. He pats her belly gently a few times, as if it’ll tell him the answer, before deciding. “I think you might be right.”

“So, you also think it’s a girl?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “I think we’re going to have a little girl with a knack for dancing while kicking ass at the same time.”

“I’m not sure that specific trait is dependent on the gender.”

“True, but still. A daughter would be pretty badass. She’ll have a badass mom, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	12. "Have fun." + "It doesn't bother me."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Can you do 52 "Have fun" + 85 "It doesn't bother me" where Peter is jealous of Gamora and Tony Stark spending so much time together?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another anon requested 52, so I’m jumping up a bit in my inbox to this prompt, which is an answer fic to both requests for 52 c: this one’s a little longer, even, for both of you !!! also, I don’t think either of you outright wanted angst, but…well…this is angst BUT WITH A GOOD ENDING THIS TIME!!!! THE ENDING IS HAPPY!!!! STARMORA IS HAPPY OKAY it’s just not that comedic rip rip rip
> 
> ((also there’s some referencing to [this other starmora ficlet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11217450/chapters/25061754) I wrote but you don’t completely need it for this one to make sense))

Peter groans when he feels Gamora shift in their bed. She’s turning away from him and sitting up. He tightens his arms around her midsection, trying to stop her.

“Peter,” she says with a sigh. “I have to get up.”

“Stay,” he mumbles sleepily against the pillow.

“I have to meet with Stark,” she insists, peeling his arms off of her.

“Again?” He opens his eyes then, looking up at her. “Why?”

“Because Thanos could show up any _day_ now,” she reminds him. “We have to be prepared.”

“I mean, true, but…” He trails off with a sigh, pulling his arms back to himself and sitting up beside her. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right. I need to have my game face on.”

She doesn’t bother asking what his expression means. “Sure.”

“I’ll come meet, too,” he says through a yawn, blinking sleep away from his eyes.

Then Gamora backtracks, sitting a little straighter. “That’s not necessary.”

He stares at her. “I’m the leader of the team.”

“We’re simply discussing tech,” she explains, echoing what Tony Stark had said of their meeting yesterday. “I have Thanos’ cybernetics _inside_ of me, so I’m comparing with what Stark has here on Terra.”

It makes sense, but Peter can’t help but frown. “Why can’t I come?”

“Oh, please,” she says, teasingly, “you’d be _incredibly_ bored.”

Okay, _maybe_ , but since it sounds like it has so much to do with Gamora, he doubts he’d get _that_ bored.

Before he can respond, she covers one of his hands with her own and kisses him softly. She smiles against his lips, pressing their foreheads together. “Don’t be jealous, Star-Lord.”

“I’m not—I never said—“ he stammers, pulling away from her. “I’m not _jealous_.”

“Good. Do not forget Stark has Pepper Potts,” Gamora reassures him. “Our meeting shouldn’t go long. I’ll come find you afterward, so we can continue watching that show with Hasselfrau.”

He doesn’t bother correcting her—especially because, most of the time, Gamora _knows_ she’s saying it wrong, but she enjoys messing with him a bit—and just sits back with a nod. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. Have fun.”

“I’ll see you later,” she says, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before getting out of bed.

* * *

Unfortunately, the meeting lasts longer than Gamora had initially estimated. Though Thanos still has yet to arrive in the days that follow, the meetings continue, and Peter’s struggling to keep his mouth shut through it all.

He’s not sure why he’s feeling so uncertain about it. He trusts Gamora more than he trusts anyone else, more than he trusts _himself_ , so he _knows_ nothing totally super _weird_ is happening between her and Stark during their time spent alone. But each time she leaves Peter’s side to go meet with Stark, Peter finds himself feeling a little more uncomfortable.

To ease his pain, he tries hanging out with the other Guardians to catch up with how they’re feeling about Earth. None of them can really go out into the city like he and Gamora have, though, because he’s the only one that can really blend in with humans. (Gamora hardly gets by with an oversized hoodie he bought her.)

Rocket’s listing off a bunch of technical stuff to him while working on a bomb in one of the several labs in the Avengers Facility while Peter’s totally zoning out. He watches Rocket’s paws move expertly between his collection of parts he’d picked up around the place, reflecting on everything going on right now.

Though he’s typically the optimist of the team, he finds himself struggling with heavy pangs of doubt this time around. Thanos is going to be an uphill battle for them, that’s for sure. Their run-ins with just his goons in the past have often left members of the team seriously injured, not to mention what had happened only a few months ago to Gamora.

And lately, when he wakes up in the morning—before the sun rises, before even _Gamora_ , ever the morning person, rises—he barely manages to conceal the cry bubbling up in his throat as images of the upcoming battle going horribly, _horribly_ wrong, leftover from a restless sleep, fill his mind. He holds Gamora more closely to himself, trying to force away the thoughts of the two of them, bruised, battered, broken, _defeated_ , clinging to each other as Thanos is about to deliver the final—

“ _Shit!_ ” Rocket yells as he drops a piece on the floor. Judging by the way his ears have stuck out stiffly, coupled with the fur risen on the back of his neck that has yet to lower in, like, a _week_ , Peter knows Rocket’s just on edge about the fight with Thanos as he is.

And, of course, he’s a little more easily irritated than usual. Peter retrieves the fallen piece for him with a quick stretch of his arm, then hands it back to Rocket. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Rocket mutters, placing it back in its spot on the table. He shakes his head, frustrated. “This is a dud. I don’t even know why I’m botherin’ workin’ on this one anymore.”

“You’ve been making more bombs than usual lately,” Peter comments distantly. 

“Yeah, well, when we actually have time to _prepare_ before having to save the galaxy, we should take advantage of it,” Rocket grumbles. “Both Ronan and Ego just kinda showed up in the spur of the moment and it was like, shit, we need to go save the galaxy _right this instant_. This time, we have all these days t’worry our asses off and think about what could go wrong. I think I’m startin’ to prefer the usual lack of preparation time.”

“Me, too,” Peter finds himself agreeing. “I really just want to get this over with.”

“And see, right there, everyone’s more _emotional_ than normal ‘bout everythin’,” Rocket says, gesturing to him with a paw. “Even Groot’s been mopin’, but it ain’t helpin’ anybody.”

“Yeah.”

Rocket works in silence for a few moments, then glances at Peter. “You should go check on Gamora. I’m worried ‘bout her th’most.”

That snaps Peter out of his daze as he comically stares at Rocket. “I’m sorry, did you just say—“

“ _Yes_ , I’m _worried_ , okay?” Rocket snaps, but his voice is void of hostility. Peter does detect the undercurrent of concern, though. “You should be, too. This is the most personal for her. She seemed more upset than usual ‘bout things when I saw her earlier, though.”

* * *

It takes Peter all of about ten minutes to locate Gamora in an empty room on the top floor of the facility, staring absentmindedly out the window. A cardboard box, taped shut, is the only other thing with her in the room.

“Hey,” he greets softly, coming up to stand beside her. She doesn’t react. He looks outside with her and spots some of the Avengers with Groot and Drax. Two of the Avengers—Vision and Wanda Maximoff—are sparring.

“Rocket told me you seemed a little off earlier,” Peter says, neither of them lifting their eyes from the sight outside. “I, uh, I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I’ve been a little off today, too, I guess. With everything going on and all…”

He trails off, chancing a glance at Gamora, who appears to be trying _very_ hard not to look at him. “Did you meet with Stark again today?”

When she doesn’t answer, he continues, “I guess you were kinda right about me being jealous, I mean, I was a _little_ jealous, not because I don’t trust you—I’ve never trusted anyone more than I’ve trusted _you_ —or don’t trust him. It doesn’t bother me. Honestly. I guess I just thought I’d get to spend more time with you, just the two of us, while we’re here, on Earth.”

Though he leaves out the fear, the nightmares, the anxiety, he’s said his piece, what he assumes is what Gamora wants or needs to hear. Their relationship is funny like that; even when one person is upset at the other person _because_ of something the other person did, there’s still a mutual guilt and sadness between them until things are resolved. He’s found both himself and Gamora unable to accomplish things as skillfully as they’re capable of when either of them is upset, because it disrupts their individual ability to perform.

Yeah, okay, they’re _really_ co-dependent and should probably do something about that. 

She finally gives in and looks at him then, her expression unreadable. “Yes, I did meet with Stark again today.”

Peter leans his back against the window to properly face Gamora. “You seem upset about whatever it is you two talked about.” 

She opens her mouth to say something, but seems to think better of it, simply nodding and averting her eyes.

Okay, yeah, he sees now why Rocket was so concerned. “Talk to me about it?”

Taking a deep breath, she confesses, “I haven’t been discussing just tech and Thanos with Stark.”

“Oh?” He pauses. “What, uh, _have_ you been talking to him about, then?”

“Terra.” Her eyes flick up to meet his momentarily. “And you.”

“Me?” Peter raises an eyebrow, standing up straight.

“We’ve been working on a different project,” she admits, putting her hands together nervously. “We were looking into your family here.”

“My family…here? On Terra?” he echoes. He thinks of his grandfather, the last person—aside from his mother—he’d seen and talked to before Yondu kidnapped him decades ago. “Why?”

“I wanted to find them for you,” she says softly, meeting his eyes. “I know you never really wanted to return here because of what happened when you were a child, so I thought if I could find your family, then, maybe…” She trails off with a little shrug. “I don’t know. It wasn’t my most prudent idea. I should’ve respected your privacy. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey, I haven’t even reacted negatively yet,” he protests, placing a hand on her arm. “I’m a little…surprised, I guess, but I’m not mad.”

“I asked for Stark’s help because he seems to have access to just about everything around here,” she explains. “Though, don’t tell him I said that. He doesn’t need his ego boosted anymore than it already is.” 

Peter laughs at that, rubbing Gamora’s arm. He can’t really find it in himself to be angry at her, because Gamora’s never belittled him for his past in comparison to her own, even when he’s certain hers is much, _much_ more painful. Yet, she respects his own past enough to do this for him. “Thank you, Gamora. Really. You didn’t have to do that. If anything, you should _hate_ me, because I’ve had a home to go back to for my entire life but have always ignored it.” 

She’s never been as fortunate as him in this regard, but she’s never held it against him, and, apparently, still doesn’t, as she immediately dismisses his words with a shake of her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. If our lives were switched, I’m not sure I _wouldn’t_ feel the same about my home planet, had it survived. Losing the people closest to you is not something to be taken lightly; it shapes your entire life.” 

“You got that right,” he says with a sigh. He hesitates before continuing, “So, what did you and Stark find? I’m not sure why it’s been taking up so much time, I mean, I didn’t have _that_ much family outside of me and my mom.”

Her expression softens then, as she covers his hand with one of her own and frowns. “Peter, your grandfather…”

“Yeah, I know,” he says when she doesn’t continue, offering her a sad smile. “I looked it up when we first landed. Sorry I never mentioned it to you, I just—“

“No, no, it’s fine, it’s your family, you don’t have to tell me,” she reassures him. “Stark and I didn’t stop just there. The majority of our time was spent tracking _this_ down…”

He’d forgotten about the box by her feet until now, when she gestures to it. They both crouch down beside it.

“What is it?” he asks, running his hand over it. 

“It’s what’s left of your childhood,” she explains slowly. “Your grandfather held onto a few things that belonged to both you and your mother. Some of his things are in here as well. Stark sent Romanoff and Barton to Missouri for a couple of days to look around. Apparently, one of your grandfather’s close friends—a neighbor of his before he died—held onto this in case you ever returned.”

Peter’s speechless. He’s struggling to process a number of the things Gamora’s said. This box has some of his old _stuff_ in it? Not only his, but some of his _mother’s_ things as well? And his grandfather’s? Not only had Gamora roped Stark into this operation, but _two_ of the other Avengers as well? 

And a family friend had actually had faith that he’d return some day.

“None of us have opened it or looked inside,” Gamora continues when he doesn’t respond. “I wasn’t sure how to approach you about it. I was a little overwhelmed myself. If I had access to even a _piece_ of my childhood before Thanos…” 

She trails off. “Anyway. This is yours. You can open it when you’re ready.” 

He’s so out of it that he almost doesn’t notice her getting up to leave. Before she walks away completely, he reaches out and catches her wrist, gently pulling her back to him. 

“Gamora…” He’s not sure what to say, his mouth hanging open for a few moments before he settles for a tearful, whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmurs back, her eyes just as misty.

He lets her go then. He knows she wants to give him some privacy, but this is an emotional moment for her, too, in a different way. There’s actually _nothing_ left of her home or her childhood, so being able to put her frustration and grief into helping him reclaim his life on Earth is fulfilling in a way for her as well, mere days before she’ll have to face the biggest monster of her childhood.

Maybe there is hope for them, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	13. "Sit down. I'll get it."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Starmora 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bc what’s life without some peter hurt and gamora comfort????? aka starmora hurt/comfort muahaah but don’t worry friends, this one’s pretty angst free for once (sh00k)

Peter can’t move.

Well, yes, actually, he is still very much _capable_ of movement, but not without a steep price. Even the slightest movement results in an aggressive, explosive pain in his head, and he has to screw his eyes shut to stop the world from spinning every time. He’s always hated head injuries the most. He’d take death by stabbing over death by blunt force trauma to the head, to be honest—because at least then, his head wouldn’t threaten him to completely implode, then explode, then implode _again_ , like it is now.

And it’s all because of a stupid situation caused by his stupid friends.

He loves his team dearly—really, he does; they’re his family, and he wouldn’t trade them for the world, or an _eternity_ , like a certain celestial jackass had thought, the _dick_ —but as fun as their chaotic, supportive environment is, he has his limits.

His new limit: Rocket and Drax starting bar fights within five minutes (at _most_ ) upon entering a bar.

Even after a year together, this is still a recurring problem whenever the team goes for a night out. Peter’s not really sure _why_ ; it probably has something to do with the duo’s deep, underlying issues from their respective traumatic backgrounds, or just expending frustrating energy after spending so much time in such a small space with such _obnoxious_ people, but, whatever, because either way, Peter’s still confined to his bed after getting straight-up _decked_ while trying to break up the scuffle they’d caused. 

(Although, there is hope that this will be the last time, for at least a while, that the Drax-and-Rocket-bar-fights will continue to happen regularly, because Gamora looked just short of absolutely _pissed_ about it from what Peter saw before he passed out, and if he can’t stop Drax and Rocket, then Gamora might be able to scare the problem out of them.)

Then he came to in his bed to the sound of hushed, furious whispers outside his door in what sounded like a one-sided argument ( _scolding_ ) between Gamora and Rocket and Drax. 

Whatever. The two bastards deserve it for dragging him into their mess, anyway.

“Peter,” comes a soft voice, contrasting the harsh whispers from earlier, “I need you to wake up.”

He gives a little grunt to indicate that he’s still alive, but she lays a soft hand on his face, stroking his cheek gently, and, _seriously_ , if it was literally _anyone_ else asking him, he’d have turned over and ignored them completely.

But he complies, opening his eyes to the sight of Gamora, standing over him with a small smile.

“It hurts to talk,” he whispers, struggling to get the words out.

“I know,” she says, removing her hand. “I need to check up on you every few hours; I think you have a concussion.”

He groans, but that hurts, making him groan _again_ , and just—

“ _Shit_ ,” he manages, screwing his eyes shut.

“Is there anything you need?” she asks quietly, probably controlling her volume for his sake. “Food? Water?”

Debating between the pain of shaking his head and the pain of verbally answering, he finally settles for a noise through closed lips that he hopes sounds _somewhat_ like a “no.”

But if anything’s improved in their time together, unlike Rocket and Drax’s stagnant coping mechanisms at bars, it’s Peter’s communication with Gamora, because she just understands things, and he understands her, and it’s pretty great, being able to have silent conversations via facial expressions over the heads of the others, leaving them all wondering who they’re talking about and what they did wrong.

(“It’s, like, a _total_ parenting thing,” he’d told Gamora one time, and she seemed cool with it.)

Gamora, predictably, understands. She nods, offering him a soft smile. “Okay. You can go back to sleep now.”

He stares up at her with big eyes, blinking slowly.

“I’m staying with you,” she reassures him. “I’m not going to leave you to die in your sleep. If you do that, I’ll be here to kill you for it right away.”

It hurts to laugh.

* * *

Sometime later, Peter wakes up on his own, tangled up in Gamora’s arms and legs. They usually rotate their cuddling—the first time Peter had mentioned their _cuddling_ to Gamora, she insisted she threw up a little in her mouth at the mushy idea, but he knows she loves it just as much as he does—positions, with her curling into him some nights, and vice versa. Apparently, tonight, they’ve just been a mutual mess, unconsciously trying to latch onto each other.

His head feels a bit better from earlier, but still nowhere near normal. Judging by the lack of noise from the rest of the ship, everyone else is probably sleeping.

Despite the idea of a (for _once_ ) quiet Quadrant appealing to his lingering headache, the silence puts him on edge. There’s the comforting sound of Gamora’s breathing, yes, but he needs something else, something _specific_.

…Where’d his Zune end up during the fight, anyway?

At some point after returning to the ship, Gamora had helped him change out of his clothes into proper pajamas, so his Zune might be with his laundry, unless Gamora took it and moved it somewhere else.

Carefully, he pulls away from Gamora, watching her for some sort of reaction. When she remains asleep, he takes a deep breath, steeling himself to sit up in the bed and pull the covers off. He turns his legs to the side of the bed, placing his feet down on the floor. Counting down in his mind, he manages to push up into a standing position while holding onto the nightstand to steady himself.

The Zune could be in a number of places, but he’s willing to look. Sometimes, he just can’t _not_ listen to the music from his mother—and now Yondu—and he typically puts down whatever he’s doing to fulfill that need.

He makes it about two steps forward before Gamora sleepily calls after him, “Why are you up?”

Busted.

Turning back carefully, he finds Gamora now sitting up in bed, rubbing at her eyes.

“You should still be in bed,” she continues. “You need to rest.”

He stays in place. “I wanted my Zune.”

Now she’s up on her feet, gesturing to the bed. “Sit down. I’ll get it.”

Though her tone is far from impatient, he frowns. It sucks that she has to do practically _everything_ for him while he’s hurt, but he does as she says, making his way back to the bed and carefully sliding back under the covers.

She walks around the bed to a set of drawers, from which she procures the Zune and his earbuds. While walking back to the bed, she fiddles with it—probably scrolling through his songs to choose one for the two of them to listen to—but then she stops, cursing under her breath.

“The battery needs to be charged,” she says with a sigh.

“Oh.”

He tries not to sound disappointed, but everything’s pretty _shitty_ right now. She hooks it up to the charger on Peter’s nightstand before returning to her side of the bed and crawling in with him.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” she murmurs, facing him. He turns to face her. “I should’ve checked if it was charged earlier when I took it out of your pocket.”

“’S’fine,” he mumbles. “I don’t need it.”

She presses her lips together thoughtfully. “What song did you want to listen to?”

“I was just gonna put it on shuffle.” He shrugs.

“Well…” she pauses, searching his eyes. “I know a few of the songs.”

He raises his eyebrows at that, ignoring the way his brain protests the sudden movement, grinning a little. Her words give him a second wind, revitalizing him a bit. “Do you take requests?”

“On special occasions.”

“And this is…?”

“I suppose it is, indeed, a special occasion.”

His head still hurts like a _bitch_ , but as he curls into Gamora with this stupid smile on his face, he forces himself to ignore it as much as possible. She wraps an arm around him, holding him close to her. He sighs, resting his head against her chest. “In that case, I have a song in mind. A special song. For this special occasion.”

“Yes?”

“Y’know any Elvin Bishop?”

Though he can’t see her face, he imagines her rolling her eyes in her own Gamora way, accompanied by her typical smirk. As she starts humming the familiar tune, Peter relaxes his entire body, closing his eyes and focusing on her soft voice.

Before he completely loses himself to sleep, he manages to mumble a hasty “thank you” to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)


	14. “This is probably a bad time, but marry me?” + “OH MY GOD I’M GOING INTO LABOR. WHAT DO WE DO NOW?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Would you do 57 "This is probably a bad time, but marry me?" + 82 "OH MY GOD I'M GOING INTO LABOR. WHAT DO WE DO NOW?" with Starmora? :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TIME FOR SOME STARMORA BABIES WAO ✨✨✨ well, just one for now, but we’ll see……. ;)))

It’s been a day.

Not an outright horrible day, but a chaotic roller coaster of a day that doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

First of all, it’s been years. Literally. _Years_ , since their mission for the Sovereign, where Rocket decided to steal some batteries, because whoop-dee-fucking-doo, right?

But the gold bastards, of course, _still_ haven’t forgiven the team for it, despite them saving the galaxy numerous times (which means saving the _Sovereign_ , too, _hello_ ), and now Peter’s running around the Milano like a chicken with its head cut off, to help Rocket pilot the thing _and_ help Gamora.

Because, uh, her water just broke, or something.

Judging by the way the liquid just kinda _pools_ at her feet all at once, it’s definitely not “or something”—that’s definitely the telltale sign of her body saying, hey, it’s _time_.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” is all Gamora has to say (or, really, _yell_ ) on the matter before Peter grabs towels to help her clean up (both herself and the floor) and ushers her to their room.

Thankfully, Drax, literally the only fully knowledgeable person on shit like this, stays with Gamora while Peter helps Rocket fight their way through the Sovereign fleet. Groot’s also with her for extra support—as well as ensuring she doesn’t get thrown around from their crazy piloting.

He rushes back to her every five minutes or so, and she looks a _little_ bit more flustered every time. On what he counts to be his eighth trip back, he takes more time with her, giving her a hand to hold while clinging onto his bedpost with the other to anchor himself as Rocket maneuvers the Milano in his Rocket-way.

“Hey, hey, babe,” Peter says softly, but loudly enough to be heard over the sounds of the fight. “As soon as we get out of here, we’re going to be _parents!_ ”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says hastily, with a little nod, squeezing his hand. Everything’s a bit overwhelming right now, and even though Gamora’s just playing the waiting game, he can only imagine the thoughts running through her head. “We’ll have a baby.”

It’s happening, a dream that had, for so, so long, been unattainable for both of them, and watching at Gamora look up at him, a bit panicked, but with a small smile, in the midst of the literal _battle_ they’re in right now, Peter can’t help himself. 

Then the ship totally does a barrel roll, and Peter manages to stop both himself and Gamora from getting thrown around the room, and everything is just a giant _disaster_. The ship levels out with a loud, hasty “ _Sorry!_ ” from Rocket while he’s piloting the thing alone.

Before Gamora can say anything, Peter presses a quick, reassuring kiss to her lips, as if to apologize for the circumstances she has to bring their kid into the world in, and his heart just fills with so much _love_ at the thought because, holy _shit_ , they’re going to be parents very, _very_ soon, and he gets to do it with Gamora by his side.

This is the eternity Ego could never give him.

“Hey, uh, this is probably a bad time,” Peter says slowly after pulling his lips away, “but marry me?”

“What?” She just kind of stares up at him in a daze, as if trying to comprehend his question. Though, there’s also a lot of shit happening inside her body right now, so she’s probably not as coherent as usual. Fortunately, according to Drax, they still have time, as long as the contractions don’t—

“OH MY GOD, I’M GOING INTO LABOR!” Her grip on Peter’s hand increases _exponentially_ , like, the most exponential value that’s mathematically possible, and Peter can’t help but cry out in surprise. “WHAT DO WE DO NOW?”

* * *

“I never said that.”

Peter looks up at Gamora from his seat. She’s just giving him her patented tired, exasperated look, with an eyebrow raised and a frown.

“It was implied.” 

“I was much calmer than you’re describing. _You_ were the one freaking out.”

“Fine, guilty as charged,” he relents with a shrug. “I was freaking out, but you were freaking out, like, _at least_ a little.”

“A little,” she concedes. 

“ _Anyway_ ,” he resumes telling the story, looking down at the bundle in his arms, “you chose a very impractical time to come, young lady.”

“We’ve never had especially good timing.”

“Yeah, your mom’s right on that one. Good timing doesn’t really run in the family.” He gently pokes the baby’s nose with his index finger, grinning when she simply continues to sleep. “No reaction. You _totally_ sleep like your mom.”

He looks back to Gamora, in the hospital bed, just in time to catch her eye roll. For someone who had to push out a baby hours earlier—which is totally something Peter both _never_ wants to see again, yet would also be _fine_ with seeing again, because, holy shit, the idea of Gamora and him having _multiple_ kids—she has a surprising amount of energy.

“If she can sleep easily through the night, that’s not something we should question,” Gamora says. “That would be a blessing.”

“Let’s pray for that, then,” Peter murmurs, glancing down at the newborn. Honestly, he’d never thought he’d hear the name _Meredith Quill_ ever again, except within the privacy of his thoughts, but now he’s looking at Meredith Quill, his daughter. He smiles, cradling her more closely to his chest. “I love her so much _already_ , Gamora. I didn’t think that was _possible_.”

“I think that’s part of being parents,” she says softly, settling her hands in her lap.

“This must be what my mom felt,” he reflects. “And what your parents felt, too.”

“I wish they were here,” she admits quietly, reverently.

And he nods, sighing. “Yeah. Me, too.”

Back in his life on Terra, his grandpa had been a constant presence throughout his life. Though Peter was much, _much_ closer to his mom, he appreciated his grandpa for being there. It had just been part of growing up, in a way, spending time with the parent of his parent, being spoiled and loved unconditionally by another person.

But little Mer won’t get that same privilege, from either side of the family.

“Hey,” he speaks up suddenly, looking up at Gamora. “You know what this means, right?”

“That we’re now officially parents?”

“Well, yeah, _that_ , but…” He pauses, glancing between Mer and Gamora. “You’re not the last person of your species anymore.”

Looking down at Mer, his genetic influence is obviously present: she has a light, Terran-colored skin tone like his (though he _swears_ there’s just the _faintest_ hint of green) and hair of a color somewhere between his brown and Gamora’s black.

“I mean, she’s technically only _half_ , I suppose,” he continues, meeting Gamora’s eyes, “but still…”

Gamora’s just staring at him now, her eyes glossy and wide with a kind of shock he’s never really seen before. He quickly stands up and leans closer to her, handing over Mer with a small smile.

“There are now _two_ Zen-Whoberi people out there,” he murmurs, holding up two fingers.

She nods, hugging Mer close to her chest. Though his knowledge of Zen-Whoberi culture is poor at best (Gamora’s only direct knowledge of her culture comes from memories of a lost childhood so long ago, so he’s not sure how much of her lifestyle now comes from her home planet), he knows there must be _some_ things she can pass onto Mer.

They both look down at Mer, watching her in a comfortable silence for a few moments, before Gamora finally says, “Thank you, Peter. For giving me this.”

“You did all the heavy lifting here,” he reminds her, pressing a quick kiss to her temple, “so, really, thank _you_.” 

The silence resumes.

Then, perhaps, a minute later, “Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s get married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *~ taking a moment to appreciate the fact that I now get to write about a canon interracial relationship having mixed babies oh my fucking god I’m ecstatic pls send more starmora baby/fam prompts ~*
> 
> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	15. “I could really use a foot rub right now.” + “I think you might be pregnant.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happilyminiaturetastemaker: Can you please write 084 + 076 with Starmora? The numbers are from the new list. I'm such a sucker for domestic fluff and babies! And also I love your writing skills :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy father’s day to the usa readers!!!! i personally think peter quill would make a p cool dad. yay!!!! ((also fuckkkkk the wifi is acting up hope i can get this up before i leave,,,,))

Gamora sighs as she sits down at the dining table, relaxing into her chair.

“Hm, was that an _it’s so good to be done with this mission_ -sigh or an _it feels insanely good to sit down right now because I’m incredibly exhausted_ -sigh?” Peter asks, looking at her over his shoulder as he works on dinner.

“The latter.” She closes her eyes briefly. He grabs a cup and fills it with water for her, placing it on the table in front of her, prompting her to open her eyes.

“What’s got you so tired lately?” he inquires, returning to his place by the stove. “Not that our job isn’t insanely demanding, because sometimes I feel like I _literally_ can’t move, but nothing’s been too crazy lately. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” she reassures him, sipping at the water. “Whatever this is, it’ll pass, soon enough.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Well,” she teases, “I could really use a foot rub right now.” 

“Uh, _you_ try explaining to the others why their food tastes like your feet.” He gives her a _look_ , and she just ducks her head, trying (and failing) to hide a smile. “But I’ll see what I can do after dinner.”

“Thanks.”

Despite her words to him, Gamora’s not really sure _what’s_ up with her lately, because the exhaustion she’s felt the past few days is dangerously close to rivaling what she felt when saving the entire _galaxy_ —against Ronan, Ego, and Thanos, namely—with the team in the past. She hopes more than actually knows the feelings will pass, because it’s making her already tedious, busy life that much more complicated to keep up with.

She doesn’t even notice she’s nodding off in the chair before Rocket’s voice suddenly greets her.

“There you are, Gamora,” he’s saying, walking into the kitchen with his latest project.

“Huh?” She blinks quickly, trying to wake herself up before either Rocket or Peter can notice. “What do you need, Rocket?”

“Oh, nothin’,” he says casually, sitting across the table from her. He sets his tools and work-in-progress down to continue his tinkering. “I just wanted t’see how you were doin’, since you seemed kinda outta’it earlier.” 

“Are you sure you’re not sick?” Peter inquires from the stove.

“I’m sure,” Gamora says. “Even if I am, it’s just minor. Nothing to worry about.”

“Hm.” Rocket studies her for a moment before returning to his work. “If ya say so.”

Rocket’s a curious character. He’d started out as somewhat of a professional asshole when they saved the galaxy the first time around, then, while maintaining his asshole-ness, developed into a more open, dependable teammate and friend. Gamora’s only direct qualm with him had been because of his decision to forcefully prevent her from going after Peter on Ego’s planet, but now, years later, they’ve moved so, _so_ far past that. 

(And, yeah, Gamora may still not agree with his decision, but it’s a miniscule anger in comparison to her overall close friendship with him.)

Anyway, Rocket’s been acting strangely lately, as her health’s been acting up. She feels as if she’s suddenly spending more time with him—not that she’s against that, she enjoys Rocket’s company—than usual. Even Peter’s noticed, pointing out how Rocket’s occasionally directly _followed_ her, around the ship, on a mission, wherever.

Whatever it is, she doesn’t think much of it.

“What are you working on?” she asks after watching Rocket work in silence for a minute or two.

“New baby monitors, or whatever-the-hell, for you’s’two,” he answers, not even looking up. “Quill’s idea.”

“I just want to make sure we have the best surveillance possible when Mer goes down for a nap or to play by herself or whatever,” Peter explains, looking at them. “She’s a toddler, and toddlers are _trouble_.”

“Terrans,” Rocket grumbles, gesturing vaguely to the air beside him.

“ _Zen-Whoberi_ -Terrans,” Peter corrects proudly.

“Whatever.”

They sit in a comfortable silence once again, only the sounds of Peter’s cooking and Rocket’s tinkering filling the air. Gamora finds herself struggling to stay awake again, her eyes slipping closed and head tilting slightly to the side. 

A few blissful minutes pass before Rocket announces the completion of his project and leaves the room.

By then, Gamora’s given into her exhaustion, crossing her arms on the table and resting her head against them, ready for a quick nap before—

Quiet, tiny footsteps fill her ears all too quickly, followed by Mer calling out to her parents from the doorway.

“Hi, Daddy!” Mer scampers over to Peter first, hugging his legs. 

“Hey, Mer-bear, be careful, the stove is hot.”

Gamora just barely manages to pull herself together in time for Mer abandoning Peter and approaching her, holding her arms up toward her. “Hi, Mommy!”

“Hi,” Gamora mumbles sleepily, exhaling softly as she pulls Mer up into her arms, setting her on her lap. She presses a kiss to Mer’s head. “How was your nap?”

“Good,” she answers, wrapping her arms around Gamora’s neck and resting her head against her chest. “Dinner?”

“Soon, kiddo,” Peter answers, turning off the stove. He turns to Gamora and Mer at the table. “Be gentle with Mommy, she’s tired.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been busy,” Gamora says with a shrug, laying a hand on Mer’s back. “But it’s okay, I’ll be better soon.”

Peter approaches them then. “Here, sit with me, Mer.”

Mer, as easygoing as ever, releases Gamora and turns her arms up to Peter. He picks her up, then sits in the chair beside Gamora’s, settling Mer on his lap. Wrapping his arms around her, he hugs her closely to him, prompting a giggle from her.

“Rocket’s still acting funny,” he comments, letting Mer play with his fingers. “Did you do something to make him really like you all of a sudden?”

Gamora shakes her head. “No, I’m not sure what prompted it, honestly. He’s just been more interested in whatever I’m doing lately, I guess.”

Peter laughs a little then. “His behavior kinda reminds me of when you were—“

He cuts himself off with a look of bewilderment, staring at her with wide eyes.

She stares back, unimpressed. “When I was…?”

“The fatigue!”

“What?”

“Your fatigue lately, how you’re just randomly tired for no reason,” he says, gesturing to her. “And Rocket’s acting super…super _protective_ of you! It all makes sense!”

“Peter, what—“

He quickly covers Mer’s ears, whispering harshly, “I think you might be _pregnant!_ ” 

Now it’s her turn to widen her eyes, her mouth hanging open as she comprehends his words. After several moments of stunned silence, she manages a “ _What?_ ”

(Because, as much as she’s too shocked and confused to outright admit it, Peter’s reasoning makes sense, and, _oh, my god_ , she probably _is_ pregnant again, what the _fuck—_ )

“That _has_ to be what’s happening here,” Peter says, determined. “See, back on Earth, people said animals—like Rocket, since he’s a raccoon, even though he swears he’s _not_ , he’s a freakin’ _raccoon_ —could sometimes sense it before people could, so they’d be more protective around the people they cared about, and, and—oh my _god_ , you might actually be pregnant again, holy _shit_.”

“Daddy,” Mer protests, pushing at his hands over her ears.

“Hey, Mer-bear, can you go play with Groot for a bit? He’s in his room,” Peter says, turning her in his lap to meet her eyes. “I need to talk with Mommy real quick.”

“Okay.” He lowers her from his lap and she scampers off down the hallway.

“You…could be right,” Gamora finally admits. “It _would_ make sense.”

“We should get this tested, like, _now_ ,” he says, somewhere between frantic and excited. “As soon as possible.”

“And if that’s what this is?” she asks, because, what the _hell_ , they hadn’t had much of a talk yet about a second kid. It was never completely off the table, but they hadn’t _planned_ for it, at least not specifically. This changes a lot of things, like the dynamics of their families, her ability to contribute physically to the team, the amount of time _either_ of them can contribute _anything_ to the team, not to mention Mer’s going to have to adjust to being one of _two_ children.

“Well…we made it out safely after Mer surprised us,” he points out. “I mean, we’re _definitely_ going to need some serious time to process this and actually talk about it, but I think we can handle it. You’re the one doing most of the work, though, so what do _you_ think?”

She absentmindedly sets a hand over her flat stomach, trying to process everything. 

Is she _ready?_

Probably not, but is anyone _really_ ready when things like this happen?

Does she even _want_ this?

“I think,” she says slowly, reaching a hand out under the table to grasp one of Peter’s hands, “this is good.”

“Yeah? Yeah. It’s good. Really good.” He nods along to his own words, smiling carefully. She mirrors his expression. “Yeah. Okay. Awesome. We can totally do this. Second time’s the charm. Let’s do it.”

He seals his words with a quick kiss, and, honestly, with him by her side, Gamora _knows_ they can do this again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy father's day!!!
> 
> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!! :))


	16. “Rock Paper Scissors to see who has to go talk to the neighbors upstairs for being too loud.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: STARMORA!! 38: “Rock Paper Scissors to see who has to go talk to the neighbors upstairs for being too loud.” But bit of a twist and maybe it's the rest of the guardians doing Rock Paper Scissors to see who has to tell starmora they're being too loud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha u get what u wish for ;))))
> 
> also so sorry i didn't upload this earlier !!! i hastily posted it on tumblr before leaving the house for the rest of the day, but here it is!

_Thump_. 

Rocket drags his paws down his face, angling his ears _away_ from Quill’s room. He growls quietly, trying to force the mental images—prompted by all the flarkin’ _noise_ coming from Quill’s stupid flarkin’ _room_ that he shares with Gamora—out of his head.

“Alright, someone’s gotta do something about this,” he huffs to the other Guardians, looking at them with big eyes. “We’re all stuck on this d’ast ship ‘til we land off on another planet, so we can’t get away from their damn… _whatever_ they’re doin’!”

“Sex,” Drax supplies easily.

_Thump._

“Thank you, Captain Obvious!” Rocket sneers.

Groot makes a low grunt that speaks volumes of his disapproval over the whole thing; he’s probably being traumatized, since, y’know, Quill and Gamora practically _raised_ him, and now he has to listen to them make him a younger sibling.

“It is only natural for them at this stage of their courtship,” Drax says, as if _reminding_ them. “I do not see the problem.”

“I don’t need to _see_ it, I don’t even want to _hear_ it!” Rocket protests. He looks among Drax, Groot, and Mantis. “Who wants to go tell them to save it ‘til the rest of us are gone?”

Predictably, no one raises their hand. Of course. Rocket drags a paw down his face once more, _exasperated_.

“Well, I’m not doin’ it,” he grumbles, shaking his head. “Hell no.”

_Thump._

“I am Groot.”

“A Terran game?” Rocket looks up at Groot. “Quill taught it to ya?”

Groot nods, glancing at each of them. “I am Groot.”

“Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who has to go talk to them for bein’ too loud,” Rocket translates. “Oh, yeah, _that_ game.”

Mantis claps her hands together excitedly. “Peter recently taught me this game! I am quite good!”

“Not as good as me,” Drax insists proudly.

“Have you ever played?” Rocket asks pointedly.

“No, but I’m sure if I did, I would win.”

_Thump._

One quick tutorial and three rounds of rock-paper-scissors later, Rocket’s ready to pull his whiskers out, because even _that_ would be more enjoyable than what he now has to go do.

“Good luck, creature,” Drax says earnestly, though the grin on his face suggests otherwise (he’s picked up on some of the sarcasm and humor over the past couple of years).

“It is disturbing to think of Peter and Gamora in this way,” Mantis says. “Please go stop them.”

“I am Groot.”

“Alright, alright! I’m goin’,” Rocket grumbles, dragging his feet as he walks out of the cockpit and toward the captain’s quarters, A.K.A. Quill’s room.

It’s times like these having the Quadrant would be _really_ helpful, because the last thing Rocket wants to hear is this shit. He’s never been against Quill and Gamora being all mushy, or whatever, with each other, but this is a pretty dick move on their part, considering the rest of the team has to _listen_ them. The walls of the Milano aren’t that thick, after all.

_Thump._

“Why me?” Rocket mutters to himself, stopping at Quill’s door.

With a sigh, he forces the door open, covering his eyes with one of his paws.

“I’m not lookin’, ‘cause I don’t want to see whatever the hell’s goin’ on in here, but, _please_ , for the love of God, can’t you wait ‘til the rest of us are off the flarkin’ _ship_ to do this?”

His question is met with silence, which is eventually broken by Peter.

“Uh…what?”

“Stop havin’ sex while we’re all still here, ya idiot!” Rocket yells, still covering his eyes. “You're traumatizin’ Groot! And the rest of us, for a matter o’fact!”

“That’s not—we’re not—“

Gamora’s confused sputtering is interrupted by Peter’s loud laughter. At that, Rocket chances a quick peek, opening one eye.

The bed is a mess, but not in _quite_ the way he’d expected. The covers are pulled out this way and that, one of the pillows in Peter’s hand and the other by Gamora’s foot. Gamora’s standing in one corner of the room, near Rocket, holding a…what the _fuck?_ It’s some weird toy, like a sword, except clearly non-lethal (unfortunately) that’s glowing blue, for whatever reason. Peter stands in the opposite corner of the room, armed with a pillow and what looks like a gun, but is bright orange and also (unfortunately) non-lethal-looking.

“What the _hell?_ ” is all he manages to say, looking between the two of them pointedly. “You two sounded like you were screwin’ each other!”

“Not _exactly_ ,” Peter says, prompting Gamora to roll her eyes, per usual. “Stark gave me some old toys before we left Earth, said to add it to my collection of Terran stuff. Figured we could find a way to make them lethal for added fun on missions, but…”

Gamora holds out her weird sword thing. Peter gestures to it. “That there is a light saber, which is a sword of light from these really popular Terran movies.” He holds up his toy gun. “And this is a Nerf gun. It shoots foam bullets so kids usually run around, shooting at each other with these.”

Rocket notices what appears to be one of the “foam bullets” by his foot. He picks it up to inspect it. It’s an obnoxiously bright orange color and very squishy, clearly incapable of causing serious harm.

“So, yeah.” Peter smiles awkwardly, almost _shyly_. “We were…playing?”

Why, for fuck’s sake, can’t anyone on this team ever be _normal?_

“Sorry for the misunderstanding,” Gamora says more evenly.

“’S’fine, I guess,” Rocket says with a shrug, tossing the foam bullet back to Peter. “Better this than the alternative. Gimme those when you want them to be _actually_ fun.”

“Will do,” Peter says.

“Have fun continuing on with,” Rocket pauses, gesturing vaguely between the two of them, “ _whatever_.”

He leaves then, stepping out of the room and sliding the door closed behind him. As he stands there, he can hear Peter resume their “game,” or whatever.

“Our duel is not yet over, Zen-Whoberi!” Peter calls out, his voice muffled by the door.

“Will you concede, Terran?” Gamora challenges.

“Never!”

Then the suspicious noises from before resume, and Rocket decides to finally take his leave then, shaking his head with a small grin.

What a couple of idiots, making up for their lost childhoods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me fun prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	17. "Kiss you slow."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: hello thar, twas wondering if you take song prompts! And if you do, could you pretty please do an au with "kiss you slow" by Andy Grammer? much love and peace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all i’m assuming you wanted starmora so that’s what i wrote!! so i listened to this song and read thru the lyrics a good handful of times, and this is what came out. it’s not really an au, but it technically is canon divergent, i suppose. i hope you enjoy !!

Family means a lot of things, Peter’s come to learn. He’d first only thought of his mother as family (and his other blood relatives), but then Yondu and the Ravagers became a family of sorts for him, followed by the Guardians of the Galaxy, his team of dorks who continually teach him more lessons about life and love and friendship and all that jazz more than he’d readily admit.

Speaking of love, Gamora’s definitely taught him a lot in that particular department, through the glances she sneaks at him during team gatherings and the way she holds his hand so delicately and her warm words to him about this and that, anything and nothing.

But being a Guardian is hard work, and being _two-time_ galaxy-savers is even _harder_ work, because word’s getting around the universe about them and what they can do, and they’re flooded with work—both action-packed jobs and boring things, namely meetings with people like Nova Prime.

It’s because of this Peter finds himself dragging his feet through the Quadrant with a bag over his shoulder toward the Milano, huffing out a sigh. The team needs to split because apparently overlapping schedules is an actual _problem_ now, and it’s possible to overbook themselves.

Sometimes, Peter wishes they could just go back to being obnoxious, unprofessional _one-time_ galaxy-savers that nobody expected to be super good at their job.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Gamora asks for probably the third time, at least. She trails behind him, seemingly just as disappointed in the separation they’re about to go through as he is. It’s the first time any of them have split up since Ego—only a few months ago—and though Peter isn’t afraid he’s going to encounter a crazy Celestial without properly planned backup this time, he _is_ pretty disappointed that he and Gamora will have to be apart.

(Though, he supposes, the separation might challenge them to become _three-time_ galaxy-savers, judging by the team-separating-events that prompted their past escapades to protect the universe, so, yeah, that fear is there, too, for sure.)

“I’m not sure,” Peter admits after a moment, turning to face Gamora. “But we gotta split it this way, in case something big happens while you guys are out.”

“You’re only taking Mantis with you,” Gamora points out. “You might want to bring along some more backup.”

“It’s only a meeting with Nova Prime, so it _should_ be fine,” he says with a shrug. “Besides, you guys need as much of the team as possible to do the job, and you’re the one I trust the most to lead.” 

She doesn’t even bother hiding the proud smile that fills her face at his words. “We will rendezvous on Xandar in three days’ time.”

“Yep, that’s the plan.” He nods, leaning forward to press a quick, parting kiss to her lips. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“I’ll miss Mantis more.”

“Ha, funny.” He pauses. “Seriously, though, _please_ tell me it’s not weird for me to feel like this is gonna suck? Like, for the two of us? Since we’re, y’know…” He gestures between them. “I guess I’m a bit of a sap.”

“We’ll be fine, Peter,” she responds, taking his hands in hers and squeezing them. “This will be…different from what we’re used to, but it was bound to happen eventually.”

“Yeah. Yeah, there’s a first for everything,” he says, trying to psych himself up. “Right. Okay. Three days’ time.” 

“Yes.”

“And touch base once a day while we’re apart.”

“That, too.”

Her smile tightens, and he recalls the time she’d spent on Ego’s planet trying to get into contact with Rocket (unsuccessfully) before shit hit the fan.

(Yeah…the team has a _bad_ history with splitting up. No matter what the reason is, it always seems to lead to a life-threatening problem of some sort.)

So Peter suddenly digs into his pocket, pulling his Zune and earbuds out before handing it to Gamora.

“Here.”

She looks at him, confusion replacing the concern in her expression.

“This is how you know I’ll be back,” he explains, placing the Zune on the palm of her hand and guiding her fingers in curling over it. “Of course, I’m coming back either way, but this is just more of a _tangible_ reminder.”

“What? Peter, no, I can’t take your Zune,” she insists, trying to put it back into his hands. “It’s _yours_. It’s precious to you.”

“It’s not the _only_ thing precious to me,” he says smoothly, winking at her. She doesn’t even roll her eyes at the flirting attempt— _success_ , he mentally fist-pumps—but still stares at him, clearly taken aback. “Look. Just. I’m sure you won’t miss me _that_ much, since it’s only three days, but I figured Nova Prime wouldn’t really appreciate me listening to music during the meeting, so might as well get rid of the temptation, right? And I’m sure Groot wants to listen to the songs on it while I’m gone. Music helps plants grow, y’know? I’m just trusting you with it, because you’re, honestly, the safest hands around here.”

She nods, accepting his rambling while she pockets the Zune and earbuds. “I’ll hold onto it for you.”

“Yeah, that’s it, thanks,” he says, offering her a small smile. “Anyway. I should get going.”

“I’ll see you in three days.” She pulls him into a hug, breathing a sigh into his chest. He wraps his arms around her in return, losing himself in the moment.

* * *

The next time the team has to split up for different jobs—namely, one group goes with Peter while the other group goes with Gamora—Peter finds himself being handed a retracted blade.

It’s the Godslayer, the sword Peter’s come to know better through stories Gamora’s told him of her days with Thanos. She and Nebula had both wielded it in the past, but Gamora managed to claim it for good, and, to be frank, Peter believes it lives up to its name _easily_.

(“So…it’s named the _Godslayer_ ,” he’d prompted her out of curiosity one day, after her dependable blade pulled them through a tight spot on a job. “Whoever named it did a good job.” 

“I’d admired it as a child while training under Thanos,” she’d explained softly, in the intimate tone her voice took on whenever she reflected on her past, as she cleaned it. “I gave it the name when I was younger, and it just stuck, I suppose.”

“That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” he’d commented, because, _aww_ , Gamora as a little kid using her imagination, but, “also, it’s a little disturbing.”)

“Okay, I know the shared custody of the Zune is pretty cool, but this is an actual _weapon_ you use in _battle_ ,” he sputters at her gesture, staring at her through wide eyes. “This is something that you’d logically _need_.” 

“I have other blades that I need more practice with,” she reminds him, forcing it into his hands as she slips the Zune and its accompanying earbuds (which he’d handed to her just moments ago, per team-splitting-up tradition). “Besides, in case you and the others are attacked and can’t get to your blasters in time, you can use this instead.”

“The Godslayer is, like, your baby!” he protests.

“So it’ll prevent you from missing me too much while I’m gone,” she replies easily. “Just like your Zune does for me while _you’re_ gone.”

“I’m glad it helps. Guess we’re doing more of a balanced trade-off now.”

“The Zune for the Godslayer.” She presses a quick kiss to his lips, and, really, since _when_ had she gotten so fucking _cute?_ (Or had he just been blind to it until now?) “Now, then. We should be back in two days.”

“I’m holding you to that,” he says with a sigh of defeat, hooking the Godslayer to his belt because, honestly, he can’t win this one. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Of course.” 

Sometimes, he _really_ wonders how he managed to find someone like _Gamora_ to share his life with like this.

* * *

Time’s a funny thing. It goes by slowly, yet quickly enough that if you close your eyes for just a _smidge_ too long, you’ll miss out on a whole _lot_.

That’s how Peter feels the current scene between him and Gamora would appear out of context, or even to himself of just a few years ago.

He’s cleaning the Godslayer carefully, polishing it up after wielding it in a fight earlier—much to Gamora’s delight, as her sword-training lessons are apparently paying off—and Gamora’s sitting beside him on the bed, his earbuds in her ears as she sings along softly to his music, scrolling absentmindedly through the Zune.

It’s as if they switched bodies, or some shit.

But, nope—it’s just a normal day in the lives of a legendary outlaw and the deadliest woman in the galaxy.

“This thing is such a bitch to clean,” he comments, turning it over in his hands. “No wonder you’ve been giving it to me lately.”

She rolls her eyes playfully. “The music selection on the Zune grows repetitive after a while. No wonder you’ve been giving it to me lately.”

They make eye contact for a few moments, giving each other that _look_ , before descending into laughter.

Because, yeah, having to split up for missions and crap really, _really_ sucks, since he much prefers when he’s beside Gamora, tucked into her side or vice versa every night, but if this is how they _have_ to cope with the separation, well.

“Since you’ve got the polishing materials out,” she says suddenly, holding her left hand out toward him, “want to polish up my ring a bit?”

“Only if you’ll do mine for me afterward,” he responds, holding his left hand out toward her.

Yeah, okay. Maybe the separation itself sucks, but the coming together afterward almost always makes it worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok a couple of things: firstly, the song "kiss you slow" basically describes the singer saying to his wife like, yo, sorry we have to spend so much time apart, but i hope you can hear me and my love for you in my music, so what i went for here was gamora finding comfort in the zune, but then; secondly, i wanted gamora to reciprocate with the godslayer bc i'm Trash and i actually don't know the origin story of the godslayer so i took some creative license with that LMAO; thirdly, yeah you interpreted right they are, in fact, married at the end WAOOOOOO ;)))
> 
> come send me prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	18. “Quit hogging the blanket.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: “Quit hogging the blanket.” For Starmora, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprisingly, this is an angst-free ficlet!!! whaaa???? ikr??? this is just pure, playful fluff :)))) and in case you didn’t see my post earlier, thx so much for 100 followers on my writing blog!!! much love to you all <3

They’re taking their relationship slowly. Peter knows, honestly, that it’s his first attempt at a _real_ relationship, and from what Gamora has said, it sounds like it’s hers, too, so they’re trying to play it on the safe side. Plus, they already spend nearly every moment of every day together, so they have _lots_ of time to figure things out together.

Though they haven’t really talked about sex or anything like that yet, they _have_ started to somewhat regularly share a bed, usually whenever one of them sneaking into the other’s room in the middle of the night to appease their anxieties.

(Gamora’s totally the big spoon, by the way.) 

Apparently, tonight it’s Gamora’s bunk, which is admittedly smaller than Peter’s—Kraglin gave him the captain’s quarters, which, _whoa_ , okay, that’s intense—and the moment Peter slips into what space is available on the bed, Gamora adjusts for him, wrapping her arms around him.

“Nightmare?” she inquires sleepily, her eyes still closed.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he responds, snaking his arm around her. She rests her head against his arm. “Got lonely.”

“Well, hopefully I can help with that.”

He yawns then, closing his eyes. She relaxes against him, falling back asleep pretty quickly (it’s amazing, he thinks, how coherent she can sound in the moments between waking up and going back to sleep, meanwhile every time he’s half-asleep he feels just short of _intoxicated_ ) and he finally feels at ease enough to follow her into the realm of sleep. 

It’s funny, in a way. Here he is, orphaned, cuddling with Gamora, also orphaned, because of this “family” they managed to form from the Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s apparently possible to be alone _with_ someone else.

The reflection fills his dreams with the same warmth he usually feels when he’s with her, protected from his nightmares, and it’s great and all until…

Until it’s not, until it’s _cold_ , and he wakes up with a shiver, and what the _fuck_ , why is there no blanket over him—

The culprit is facing away from him now, the blanket completely wrapped around her, _several times_ even, as she continues to sleep peacefully.

How Gamora manages to move so _much_ when she sleeps, Peter never understands. What he _does_ know, however, is she does _not_ need that much blanket.

So, naturally, he starts tugging at it roughly, because, what the fuck, Gamora, _share_ , and even in her sleep, she doesn’t even give in. 

“Quit hogging the blanket,” he mutters, literally _prying_ each of her fingers from the fabric so he can unravel it from her.

“Go away,” she grumbles, awoken by his struggle and curling in on herself. “This is _my_ blanket.”

“I’m cold!” 

“So am I.”

“How can you be _cold_ when you have the _entire_ blanket?”

By this point, he’s straddling her, trying to pull it up from under her. She pushes her head away from him, into her pillow.

“Leave me alone, Peter, I’m tired.”

“I’m tired and freezing!”

No response. He huffs.

“Oh, no, the artificial gravity on the ship is too strong,” he deadpans. “I’m going to fall, aaahhh.”

“What are you—“

She’s cut off as he just drops his weight on her, lying completely on top of her. He looks up just enough to see her face as she looks back at him, her eyes open and expression _not_ amused.

“This is the only way I can get some warmth in this freezing room. Guess I’ll just have to sleep here now,” he continues, settling on top of her with a yawn. “Goodnight, Gamora.” 

Surprisingly, it takes a full five seconds before he’s pushed off, back to his side of the tiny bed. A moment later, half of the blanket resumes its place covering him. He turns to face Gamora, who’s just frowning at him. 

“There. Happy?”

“Very. Thanks, babe!” He lazily aims and plants a wet kiss on the bridge of her nose—much to her disgust apparently, as her face scrunches up at the contact—and pulls her closer to him, resting his head on top of hers. “G’night!”

“ _Good_ night,” she mutters, pressing her face into his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!! :)))


	19. “You look incredible in that.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Can I request Starmora 020-you look incredible in that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn’t sure where to go with this one for a while tbh, but then i kept thinking about “what’s gonna happen to the gotg after they defeat thanos in infinity war???? what will gamora feel like????” and 1st of all are they even gonna defeat thanos in infinity war lmao, 2nd of all yeah this is the product of that line of thought ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s been a wild couple of days.

The battle with Thanos left everyone in all sorts of emotional states, per usual with the team after big battles (Ego, unfortunately, comes to mind—must be something with evil _dads_ ), but the fact that they’d emerged _victorious_ in defeating Thanos usually anchored everyone whenever things got too uncomfy. Well, for Peter, at least. Gamora’s a bit of a different story.

On the one hand she’s happy, like, _crazy_ happy, in a way Peter’s never seen before. She’s not one to be over-the-top with anything, of course, but it’s the little things he notices, like how much more she _smiles_ whenever they meet eyes in any setting, or the way she holds his hand and can’t slow down her pace for him, just leading him excitedly on walks around the Avengers’ base. She also spends a lot more time with Nebula, talking with her over this and that, their conversations straying further and further away from Thanos and what he’d done to both of them.

Honestly, Gamora sounds like someone whose life was just extended, like, fifty years, which is cool, but also depresses him, in a way.

Because, on the other hand, she occasionally zones out, staring off into space until he jostles her, or she’ll wake up in the middle of the night thinking they’ve yet to actually fight Thanos, and she’s back to square one. Sometimes she even has these, like, existential crises, questioning what the hell she’s supposed to do with her life now, after so much of it was consumed by Thanos; the last time she’d felt this free, she once told him, she’d been a _child_.

Peter does his best to stick by her through it all, though, because she’s done the same for him for years now, after he’s gotten caught up in traumatic events, because she loves him and he loves her and emotional intimacy and support is just their _thing_.

Gradually, Gamora’s getting better, mellowing out from her intense emotions, and Peter’s just happy to be there for her.

And, apparently, the Avengers like to celebrate in _style_ —Stark’s words—by throwing wild parties after big victories. (Which is, like, cool and all, but how do they all manage to get over the emotional scarring so _quickly?_ He’ll have to ask around at the party.)

It’s to be held at the Avengers’ Tower in New York City, and it takes Peter some convincing, because his team isn’t all that great at being sociable.

“I don’t wanna party it up with any humies,” Rocket had grumbled when Peter announced their invitation. “Their alc _sucks_. It’s weak as shit.”

“I am Groot.”

“Tha’s right, Groot, they also think we’re all a bunch’a _freaks_ , so they’ll just stare the whole time.” Rocket crossed his arms. “Count us out.”

“If one of them bothers me—“ 

“No, you may not remove their spine, Drax,” Peter cut in.

“Then I will not attend, either.”

“Neither will I,” Mantis chimed in. “I am too ugly.”

“Mantis, you’re not ugly,” Gamora reminded.

“I hate Terrans,” Nebula said simply, crossing her arms over her chest and giving Peter a pointed look.

“I just don’t want to go,” Kraglin said with a shrug. “Got better alcohol on the ship.”

That conversation transpired the day before and, honestly, Peter’s okay with literally _none_ of them attending, because that greatly decreases the chances of anything exploding or anyone dying, but since he’s the team leader _and_ Terran, well, he’s gotta go to represent. Thankfully, Gamora’s attending with him.

“As my _date_ ,” he’d teased her.

“You just asked me to marry you not that long ago.”

“ _Still._ ”  

Now they’re getting ready, Peter standing in front of their mirror to adjust his collar as Gamora changes behind him.

“Okay, if the Avengers’ party turns out to be lame, I think we should go back to the ship with the others and hang out there,” he suggests absentmindedly. “What do you think?”

“I think that’s a good backup plan,” she comments, pulling on the dress she’d borrowed from Natasha Romanoff, who’s become something of a friend to Gamora recently, from what Peter’s witnessed.

As he finishes adjusting his suit, he turns around to face Gamora, who’s looking down at her dress. It’s simple and black—much like the rest of her wardrobe, he makes a mental note to tease her—but fits nicely, the skirt falling loosely just above her knees. She then turns her eyes up to him.

“Well?”

“I think,” he closes the distance between them, taking her hands in his, “you look incredible in that.”

“Thank you.” She smiles briefly, then looks at him expectantly. “Anything else?”

He gives a tiny grin. “You _really_ like the color black, don’t you?”

She rolls her eyes (affectionately). “I expected nothing less.” 

Flirting through teasing is one of several pillars in their relationship, honestly. Despite the warmth in her expression, though, he can sense something’s still off, in the way she’s holding herself and looking at him with a somewhat tight smile.

“You still sure about going to this thing?” he asks, leading her over to sit down on the bed with him. Neither of them had gotten much sleep the night before, after nightmares led to some intense heart-to-heart conversations, which left them too restless to sleep. “I mean, I’m sure it’ll be fun, but…”

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she says simply.

“But do _you_ want to go?”

She shrugs. “I’m indifferent.”

It’s just _weird_ , in a way. They’re about to attend a party to celebrate the death of her evil adoptive father, hosted and attended by a bunch of people who didn’t actually _know_ him, really, until he started threatening Earth, while Gamora had to deal with him personally for _years_.

He presses his shoulder against hers. “Is there another way you’d rather celebrate?

She rests her head against his shoulder, looking down at their connected hands. “I’m not even sure I _want_ to celebrate. Maybe just…move on with my life. With you and the others. Put him behind me.”

“That’s valid,” he says, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand. “Maybe we should skip out on tonight, then.” 

“We already got dressed and everything.”

“Then we’ll have our own private party!” As he starts to move, she lifts her head from his shoulder. He stands up, looking down at her. “I probably have better music than they do, anyway.”

“Won’t they notice if we don’t show up?”

“Eh, whatever.” As she stands up, he pulls his Zune out of his pocket, letting go of her hand so he can untangle the earbuds. When he’s done, he holds one of them out for her to take. “May I have this dance?”

She looks between him and his hand for a few moments, seemingly unsure over ditching the Avengers, but he catches the way her shoulders relax and her eyes soften, clear of the anxiety of having to attend a party all about Thanos (even if it’s for his _death_ ). Then she smiles, taking the earbud and putting it in her left ear. He does the same with his right as she steps closer to him.

He settles on “Open Arms” by Journey because sure, why not, and hands the Zune to Gamora to hold as she drapes her arms around his neck. His hands settle on her hips and they sway with the music.

This is comfortable, familiar. And probably way more fun than that Avengers party, anyway, because Thanos may fade from their minds tomorrow or the day after, but for Gamora (and, by extension, Peter), he made up too big of a part of her life to ever really completely fade away, and that’s okay, it’s not her fault.

By the time they’re at the second verse, they’re basically just hugging, really, still swaying slowly with the song, and Peter rests the side of his head against hers, closing his eyes.

“Thank you, Peter,” she murmurs softly, and he holds her more tightly in response. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	20. “Your feet are freezing.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: “Your feet are freezing.” For the starmora prompts thingy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> our usual mixture of fluff and angst here, bc why the hell not !!! ft. gamora’s really cold feet

Whenever Peter sleeps with Gamora— _just_ sleeping, mind you, their relationship isn’t quite _there_ yet—he actually, like, _sleeps_ through the night, experiencing a lot less nightmares than when he sleeps alone. Despite her somewhat cold exterior upon first meeting, Peter’s found her to be quite warm when she opens up.

As helpful as she is in combating nightmares, though, she’s not _quite_ the best when it comes to sharing the bed, whether it be stealing the blanket or nearly pushing him _off_ the bed in her sleep.

(”I didn’t do it,” she insists innocently every time. “You’re just clumsy.”

“How can I be clumsy when I’m _asleep!”_ )

She also moves. Like, a lot. It’s not very stealthy for an assassin, but he’s felt her readjust her position at _least_ ten times in one night before (yes, he counted and, yes, he _is_ that petty). They’ll start out parallel to each other, and wake up _completely_ perpendicular, Gamora just lying across him like he’s another pillow for her. He’s not sure if he finds it bewildering or endearing.

Anyway, at least it’s a peaceful, nightmare-free zone.

Most of the time, at least.

Tonight, he wakes up to her moving more than usual, though she’s still on her side of the bed. He manages to put two and two together through the haze of sleep in his brain, labeling her movement as tossing and turning before reaching out a hand to shake her awake.

“Hey, hey, wake up,” he mumbles, still half-asleep. “It’s just a dream, Gamora.”

He yawns and she turns to him, slowly stirring. As he moves closer to her, she kicks a foot out toward him, landing squarely on his stomach.

“ _Ow!_ ”

Of course, _that_ wakes Gamora up from her dream, and she looks up at him tiredly. “Did I just kick you?”

“Not as hard as I’m sure you could’ve kicked me,” he says with a shrug, pushing her foot away and scooting closer to her. “Your feet are _freezing!_ Why are they so _cold?_ _How_ are they so cold?”

“I get cold sometimes,” she answers simply, pulling the covers more tightly over herself. Then her expression softens. “I’m sorry I woke you. And kicked you.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he reassures her. “Even in your sleep, you go easy on me.”

“Of course.” She smirks. “You’re fragile.”

“Ha, ha, thanks for being so considerate.” He finds her hand under the covers and takes it gently, running his thumb over her knuckles. “You okay? It looked like you were having a nightmare.”

“I’m fine,” she says with a shrug, looking up at the ceiling. “Just some bad memories.”

“Wanna talk about it?” 

“Honestly, I don’t really remember what memories they were specifically. Mostly just memories of home.”

 _Home_. It’s a painful subject between them, for _everyone_ aboard the Quadrant, because it was the lack of a home that brought them all together, after all. (And everyone had pretty much lost their home world in some tragic way.)

“I know how that goes.” He offers her a sad smile. “Do you miss it? Your planet?”

“Always,” she whispers, then turns her eyes back to his. “You?”

“Yeah. I mean, Earth is still around, but without my mom, it’s just…”

He trails off, but he knows she understands.

“Do you ever think about the ‘what if’s?” he asks then. “Like, what if the bad things that happened _didn’t_ happen, and you got to grow up normally?”

She smiles a little. “When I was younger, I loved reading stories, especially ones about warriors and legendary war heroes in our history. I wanted to be like them, though there were no wars to be fought, at the time; my people were fairly peaceful. I like to think that if Thanos never came, maybe I would have become a storyteller myself, writing my own stories of warriors for adventurous children like myself.”

Whenever Gamora opens up about her past, Peter shuts himself up quickly to give her the space to share, because he’s noticed how much harder it is for her than for him. She’s getting better though, opening up more to him as he does to her, and her childhood stories of Zen-Whoberi are some of Peter’s favorites.

“That explains how you always have such good stories to tell Groot,” he teases.

“I was a well-read child,” she says. “What about you, if you stayed on Terra?”

“Well, if my mom hadn’t gotten sick, I always wanted to learn more about space, because of the stories she’d tell me.” He pauses. “The _non_ -Ego stories. I never had a lot of friends growing up, though, so I would probably stick with her for a long time. Make enough money to take her on trips around the world and such. It’s funny; I’ve traveled to all these different planets all over the galaxy, yet never left my hometown while on Earth. Maybe she and I could’ve traveled the world together.”

Now it’s just a “what could have been.” Ego made sure of that. 

“But, hey,” he continues, squeezing Gamora’s hand, “considering how much bad shit we both went through, we ended up in a pretty okay place, I think.” 

“Yeah.” She nods. “I think so, too.”

She opens her arms then, so he wraps his arms around her, settling his head over her upper chest. He tightens his hold on her.

“Now you can’t move all over the bed in your sleep,” he says playfully, closing his eyes. “I’ve trapped you.”

“Foolish Star-Lord,” she responds with a yawn, “nothing can stop me, not even you.”

When he wakes up hours later with her ( _freezing_ ) feet in his face, he’ll have to admit, she was right.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!!


	21. "Ooh, Child"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: I HAVE A STARMORA IDEA! -It's been a couple of years since the fight with Ego. Peter and Gamora now have a daughter who they called "Meredith" just like Peter's mother, and she one day looking through all the things of the Milano finds a kind of box with several photos of the team in different fights or places and they find her seeing those photos from when they were a little younger-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((this is a continuation of the other starmora pregnancy/baby/fam oneshots, aka chapters 7, 11, 14, and 15!!!))
> 
> whoops had to add some bittersweet angst in at the end, but also, as we saw in the last fam oneshot, gamora was pregnant with baby #2, and now you’ll get to meet baby #2: aria quill!!! tadahhhh enjoy

“Mer-bear?” Peter calls out, walking down the hall of the Quadrant. “Mer?”

He stops at his and Gamora’s room—the captain’s quarters—and peeks his head in. Sure enough, Mer’s sitting on the floor beside his side of the bed, sifting through his box of mementos.

She’s not unsupervised, however; Gamora’s sitting on the floor beside her, holding Ari in her lap. Mer pulls out an old picture and shows it to Gamora. “There’s you and Daddy!”

Gamora smiles and nods. “Yeah. That’s back from when we first met on Xandar.” 

Mer smiles down at the picture. Peter walks in then, catching sight of the way Mer’s eyes twinkle. “You look pretty, Mommy.”

“Thank you, Mer,” Gamora says, pinching Mer’s side. She contorts at the contact with a giggle.

“What’s going on in here?” Peter asks as he sits down beside them. Ari holds her chubby arms out to him then, and Gamora transfers her to his arms. She coos, poking his face with a tiny finger.

“Mommy and I are cleaning your room,” Mer declares proudly. “Your side is messy.”

He glances at Gamora then, who appears to be on the same page as Mer. Traitor. “She’s right, you know.”

“Gee, thanks,” he grumbles, bouncing Ari in his lap.

“Now we’re looking at pictures,” Mer concludes, handing him a few. “You and Mommy have gone on lots of trips!”

“That we have, kiddo,” he confirms, looking through the photos. “I had this old, janky tablet with a camera that Rocket fixed up for me after we all first met. Everyone had fun taking pictures from then on.”

Mer holds up one of just him and Gamora, dancing together in the cockpit of the Milano, taken from a very low angle that made them look super tall.

“Groot took that one,” Gamora says. “I remember that.”

“He was still little at the time,” Peter reminds, pulling out a picture of Groot when he was little to show to Mer. “He thought the camera was super cool. We couldn’t get it back from him for, like, a week.” 

After handing the picture of her parents to Gamora, Mer continues going through the box, pulling out random trinkets before returning them to the box with a disinterested expression. Despite Mer’s Terran skin tone—only a few shades darker than Peter’s, yet still a little _green_ when he looks closely—she reminds him so much of Gamora, in the way she composes herself and interacts with everyone. Even now, as she’s going through his things, it’s calculated, careful, never forceful.

She finally settles on an old kazoo Peter had kept with him from Earth—for whatever reason—and holds it up, looking through it like a telescope. “Daddy, what’s this?”

“It’s a kazoo, here, lemme show you,” he says, taking it from her. He puts it up to his mouth and blows through it, producing, well, whatever the sound a kazoo makes is called. Mer seems enthralled with it from there, taking it back from her and blowing through it loudly.

“Great,” Gamora mutters, but Peter catches a small smile on her face.

Then Ari starts wiggling in his grasp, reaching a hand out toward Mer and the kazoo. She whines a little.

“I think your mouth is too small, Ari,” Mer says, briefly pulling the kazoo from her mouth. “We can share when you get bigger.”

But Ari doesn’t give in easily, and continues reaching for it. Peter readjusts her in his lap. Ari’s a different story from Mer, who’s apparently the “easy” kid between the two. Mer’s introverted and easy-going, hardly protesting when Peter or Gamora asks her to do something. He can count on one hand the number of times they’ve had to put her on time out.

Then there’s Ari, who, even at the young age of one and a half, is more determined to get what she wants, even for a _baby_. Gamora insists Ari got all of Peter’s genes, despite Ari more clearly taking after Gamora in the physical sense. Ari’s hair is the same dark shade as Gamora’s, and her skin is of Gamora’s pigment (though a lighter shade, somewhat blended with Peter’s color).

Ari cries out and Peter sighs. “Can I see the kazoo again, Mer?”

Mer, per usual, listens, and hands it over again, refocusing her attention to the remaining photos in the box. Peter gives it to Ari, who puts the smaller end in her mouth, chewing on it absentmindedly.

“What battle is this picture from?” Mer asks, pulling out another photo.

Simultaneously, Peter and Gamora groan, looking at each other with a chorus of, “The Sovereign.”

“Mer, when you grow up and assemble your own team of people to fight bad guys, don’t hire any former thieves,” Peter grumbles, shaking his head.

“Why?”

“Well,” Gamora says, “let’s just say that Rocket’s knack for stealing has gotten us in trouble on _several_ occasions.”

“I still blame him for what happened to the Milano,” Peter says. “When the Sovereign was chasing us.”

“That was still _partially_ your fault.”

“If Rocket had never stolen those stupid _batteries_ …”

“They came in handy later,” Gamora reminds.

Peter examines the question more closely. “Man, we looked _good_ when we were younger.”

“It wasn’t _that_ long ago.”

“Long enough that Rocket’s started growing some gray fur on his ears. Haven’t you noticed?”

“He was offended when I first did.” Gamora turns her attention back to Mer. “Are there any other pictures left in there?”

Mer hums as she goes through the last of the box’s contents before pulling out a picture Peter hasn’t seen in _years_ —he hasn’t exactly gone through his memento box in a while—and gasping in surprise. “Grandma!”

“Yeah, Mer-bear, that’s your grandma,” Peter says, his voice quivering slightly. It’s a picture he stole from his grandfather’s house one day, not too long before his mom passed. (She still had hair and looked so _radiant_ in it, he couldn’t help himself, okay?)

Gamora smiles sadly as Mer shows the picture to Ari (who’s already grown bored of the kazoo and tossed it aside). “Look, Ari, this is our grandma. She’s Daddy’s mom! She lived with him on Earth.” Mer looks at the picture again, her eyes wide with admiration. “I wish we could meet her.”

Ari starts fussing, so Gamora takes her from Peter’s arms, as if allowing him to share this moment with Mer (of course, grandparents will _always_ be an unfortunate topic for their family, because between his mother, Gamora’s parents, Ego, Thanos, and Yondu…they’re all dead, evil, or _both_ ). Peter leans in closer to Mer, looking down at the picture with her.

“She would’ve loved to meet you,” he says, placing a hand on Mer’s back. Her brown hair—darker than his but lighter than Gamora’s—sits in a loose, disheveled braid beside his hand. “You remind me of her, sometimes.”

“Really?” Mer says, looking up at him. “Because we have the same name?”

“Not just that,” he says with a soft laugh. “You’re very kind and compassionate, just like her. And like Mommy, of course.”

He wishes so _desperately_ his mother could have met Gamora, if only once. His mother would’ve _adored_ her, not only because of her vast knowledge of space from her many travels, but because of her selfless spirit and passion.

“And you like to dance, just like her,” Peter continues. “You have a similar taste in music.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you like the same kind of music as her,” he explains. She crawls into his lap then, still holding the picture, and he wraps his arms around her. “Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier…”

“Ooh, child, things are gonna get brighter,” she sings back to him, stumbling a bit over the lyrics. He presses a big, wet kiss to her cheek and she laughs, fighting against his arms.

“Ooh,” Ari babbles from her spot on Gamora’s lap. Gamora releases her, allowing Ari to climb over to Mer and Peter. He scoops her up into his lap as well, pressing a flurry of kisses to her cheek. Both she and Mer laugh.

“Everybody, sing!” Peter proclaims. “Ooh, child…”

“Things are gonna get easier!” Mer yells, rather than sings.

“Ooh!” Ari echoes, also yelling.

“Hold on,” Gamora says with a laugh, reaching for the Zune from Peter’s nightstand. She plugs it into the small speaker Rocket built just for Peter to play his music aloud—without having to take over the entire ship’s intercom—and scrolls through the Zune until the familiar notes of the song start to fill the room.

Even Gamora joins in singing along, coming to sit beside Peter and the girls. Ari tries her best, managing at least the “ooh” parts. Halfway through, Mer abandons his lap for Gamora’s, wrapping her arms around Gamora’s neck as she sways along to the beat of the song.

Years ago, when Gamora first found out she was pregnant, Peter couldn’t really imagine what would happen after the baby—Mer—came, how they’d manage to be parents after having both lost their parents so tragically and traumatically at such a young age.

Now, Peter can’t picture his life any differently than this, days spent singing and dancing not only with Gamora, but with Mer, and even Ari, sharing stories and laughing over everything and nothing.

And to think it all started because he stole a stupid orb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora fam prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	22. "Please come back to bed."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Starmora prompt: “Please come back to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tho i said i’m gonna slow down a bit on getting these fics out, i’m still taking prompts!! and fortunately, the idea for this one managed to break thru the wall of writer’s block :’)

Peter turns over in the bed with his arm out, expecting to wrap it around Gamora and curl in closer to her. However, his arm simply meets an empty space and falls against the mattress. He opens his eyes, finding himself alone in the room.

Maybe she’d gone to the bathroom or something? She doesn’t usually get up in the middle of the night—not as much as he does, at least—so it’s a little odd. He sits up, rubbing his eyes and glancing around when a _clatter_ from outside his room reaches his ears.

Curious, he kicks the covers off of his legs and pushes himself up from the bed, then tiredly walks to the door and out of his room. Another _clatter_ happens, in the direction of the kitchen, so he makes his way there.

He stops in the doorway when he sees Gamora facing away from him, looking up at the cabinets.

“Gamora? Please come back to bed, I’m lonely and need your body warmth,” he mumbles teasingly. He yawns loudly and considers why she’s in the kitchen of all places. “Or…are you hungry? I can make you somethin’.”

She’s not exactly the, uh, most talented chef on-board, and he’d rather _not_ have to deal with a kitchen fire in the middle of the night. 

“Shh.” She hardly spares him a glance before refocusing her attention on the various cabinets on the wall.

They stand in silence for several moments before he puts two and two together, realizing she’s trying to hear something coming from the cabinets. He closes the distance between them, coming to stand beside her and looking up with her.

“Um…what are we listening for?” he whispers, glancing at her.

“Groot,” she whispers back. “He got scared and climbed up into the cabinets to hide.”

Um. Okay. Perfectly normal, yeah. Sure. 

“Why did he—“

Peter’s cut off by a small whimper, and he’d be lying if he said even just the _idea_ of an upset, frightened Groot didn’t pull at his heartstrings. He frowns, looking at Gamora. 

“I think he’s on one of the top shelves,” he whispers.

“I think so, too.”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“Of course. But he doesn’t want to come down.”

“Let me try.” He clears his throat then, raising his voice slightly. “Groot? Hey, buddy, it’s okay, you can come out. We’re not going to hurt you.” 

He steps closer to the cabinets as Groot replies with a teary, “I am Groot.”

“You’re safe here. You don’t have to hide from us. We just want to help you.”

Peter carefully reaches up to the cabinet Groot’s voice is coming from and opens it, revealing Groot sitting in a stack of bowls, wide-eyed. “I am Groot!”

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m gonna bring you down now,” Peter grabs the bowls containing Groot, bringing them down to the counter. “What happened? You really freaked out Gamora.”

Groot looks between Peter and Gamora with a wobbly frown before latching onto Peter’s hand and pointing to Gamora. “I am Groot.”

“What? You had a bad dream about Gamora?” Peter echoes. He raises Groot up so he can look at him more closely in the low lighting, then turns back toward Gamora, who appears just as confused as Peter feels. “Gamora’s right there, see? She’s worried about you.”

She nods, taking a step closer, but Groot shakes his head, looking up at Peter. “I am Groot.”

“You had a dream where she— _oh_. You remembered how we all fought when we first met.”

Groot nods then, quietly looking down at his feet as he crosses his little arms against his chest, holding them closely. 

…Yeah, as lighthearted and _whatever_ of a fight that may have been at the time, Peter can see how that’d be pretty traumatizing to a kid. 

Especially a kid who’d gotten his _arms cut off_ , even if he’d been an adult at the time and managed to regrow them pretty quickly.

“Oh, Groot,” Gamora says, her tone gentle, “I’m so sorry about that. You know I’d never hurt you again, right?” 

When Groot doesn’t respond, Peter adds, “It was all just a misunderstanding. You and Gamora didn’t know each other really well yet, so you were both just trying to protect yourselves.”

Groot shrugs. Peter sighs.

“I’m sorry,” Gamora repeats, averting her eyes. “I’ll just go—“

“No, wait, Gamora.” Peter grabs her hand as she turns to leave. “We should figure this out.”

“Peter…” 

“We got this,” he says. “We can do this.”

“It’s fine,” she says, subdued. “Groot’s allowed to be scared.” 

_Of me_ , are the two words to finish that statement that she’d purposefully left unspoken. He looks down at Groot. “He has no reason to be. It’s just _you_ , and, honestly, you’re not that scary.”

She gives him a _look_.

“Well, not as much before,” he amends, shaking his head. “Whatever. The point is Groot can trust you. We all know you’d never hurt him.”

Groot looks between them then, frowning. “I am Groot.”

The poor thing’s worried about hurting Gamora’s feelings, despite being afraid of _her_ hurting _him_. 

Peter smiles at that, holding him up to Gamora. “Okay, then let’s try again.”

She hesitates for a moment, as if considering her words.

“Groot,” she begins again, looking directly at him, “I promise you, I’m _never_ going to hurt you again. Things were much different back then from how they are now. I know you would never try to hurt _me_ again, so can you trust me when I _swear_ I’ll never try to hurt you?”

Groot ponders over her words for a few moments before nodding. “I am Groot.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

“I am Groot.”

“I love you, too,” she says, carefully taking him from Peter’s hand so they can hug (well, as close to hugging as they can get with Groot being so tiny, which usually just involves holding Groot against their chests as he spreads his arms out). “I’m also sorry I scared you when you woke up.”

“Aww, yay, family resolution,” Peter says, hugging both of them. He can’t stop the yawn that spills from his mouth, though, and looks at them tiredly. “Now can we _please_ go back to bed? I’m beat.” 

“I am Groot?”

“Yes, you can stay with us,” she answers with a small smile, gently running the back of her finger down Groot’s cheek. “You’re always welcome.”

When they’re all back in bed, Groot curled up on the pillow between them, exchanging “good night”s and “I love you”s, Peter smiles to himself as he closes his eyes. [  
](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/post/161706131521/askmemenoquestions-sharing-a-bed-sentence)

He and Gamora are actually doing a pretty kickass job at this whole “parenting” thing, in his opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	23. “You’re really soft.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> phil-the-stone: Hey fam are you still taking prompts??? Bc like from the number asks. ... Starmora and "you're really soft" ... Would be pure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay for soft starmora!!! :) warning for pure fluff and cuddles ahead, muahahaha!!!!

The first thing that registers is the pain in his neck, then a general soreness throughout his entire body. He groans a little, lifting his head and opening his eyes. He squints against the light in his ship and finds himself on the floor.

Well, not exactly. He’s not alone on the floor, and Gamora’s actually between him and the floor.

Wait, _what_ —

“Mornin’, Star-Munch,” Rocket says, stepping over Peter and Gamora’s intertwined bodies. He’s carrying what looks like a bomb, per usual, and barely glances at them as he sets his things down on the large table, hopping up onto a chair.

Peter rubs his eyes, looking over at Rocket as he pushes himself up a bit. Gamora, asleep beneath him, stirs a bit at his movements, curling in on herself at the absence of his warmth. They’re still fully clothed—thankfully—and he notices the blanket slipping from his shoulders. He removes himself from between her legs (good lord, he _really_ doesn’t want to know what the others’ first thoughts upon seeing them tangled up on the floor were) and transfers the blanket to Gamora, covering her before she’d get cold.

He looks up at Rocket, clearing his throat. “Why are we—“

“Hell if I know,” Rocket says, rolling his eyes. “When the rest of us got back to the ship last night, you two were conked out on th’floor. Didn’t ask any questions, just threw a blanket over ya and went to bed. Figured you were drinking, though.”

That sounds accurate; Peter’s head throbbing now.

“You at least could’ve woken us up so we could go to bed,” he grumbles sluggishly.

“Nah, this is funnier,” Rocket says with a snicker.

Whatever. It’s fine. Peter looks back down at Gamora. He remembers some drunk story exchanges—one of their favorite activities, apparently—and not much else.

She opens her eyes then, looking up at him tiredly.

He offers her a small grin.  “Uh. Hi.”

She blinks, looks from him to Rocket, then closes her eyes and rolls onto her side, pulling the blanket closer to herself.

“And goodnight.” Peter sighs, leaning back on his hands.

“I’m surprised,” Rocket says, glancing over at them. “It takes Gamora a while to get drunk. You two must’ve hit it hard last night.”

“I was not drunk,” Gamora insists, her voice muffled by the blanket. “We were guarding the ship.”

“ _I_ was definitely drunk,” Peter admits, nodding. “Guilty as charged.”

He’s not sure why Gamora would consent to sleeping _literally on the floor_ if she was actually sober. That sounds very much like a drunken thing to do, if anything.

And as she drones, “Stop talking so loud,” into the floor, yeah, okay, she was definitely at least a _little_ drunk.

Rocket’s practically falling out of his chair from his laughter. “Gamora’s forgotten her own limits! For someone with two livers, you’d _think_ she’d—”

“Peter, make Rocket shut up.”

His head throbs and he screws his eyes shut. “Alright, alright, that’s enough. Rocket, keep making your…bomb, thing, _whatever_ , just do it silently. Gamora, go back to sleep. I’m just going to…” 

He lies down beside her, but she sits up, squinting at him and holding the blanket around her (she reminds him of a burrito, but he’s not about to tell her that). She says nothing as she pushes his legs apart and moves herself between them, lying down on top of him like he’d done to her for the entire night. She settles her head on his chest, closing her eyes.

“Your turn,” she mumbles against his shirt. He wraps his arms around her. “I held you all night.”

“What can I say? You’re really soft,” he says with a yawn.

“Aw, you two drunk, tragically lovesick kids, do you need me to help you back to your room so you don’t have to sleep on the floor like idiots?” Rocket says in a condescending tone, looking at them with a pretend pout.

Peter rolls his eyes. “Shut up, Rocket. We’re trying to sleep here.”

“Whatever.” Rocket turns back to his work with a shrug, though he’s at least tinkering _quietly_. “Don’t complain later when you wake up on a floor _again_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!! :))))


	24. "Love is in Bloom"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Starmora-53 wedding day with exchange of rings and vows, 54-big wedding celebration on Xandar, and 55-Wedding night and off to the honeymoon they go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 53\. “Do you take this man/woman to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife?” // 54. “May I have this dance, wife/husband?” // 55. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m so happy I can finally call you my wife/husband.”
> 
> wao this is almost 5k words long um,,,,, i got another prompt asking for 53 + a wedding ceremony so here’s to both of you anons!!!
> 
> so yeah anyway. here’s a humongo jumbo starmora wedding fic ;)))
> 
> (the quotes were too long for the chapter title so i just borrowed from a song, heh)

It’s somewhat of a big deal, the marriage of two _three_ -time galaxy savers. At least, that’s the impression Gamora gets, judging by the enthusiasm and helpfulness of the Xandarians (and even Nova Prime _herself?_ ) when she and Peter announce their desire to be wed upon arriving on their planet.

It’s a couple of days of planning and organizing and assembling the people important to them, even the Avengers all the way from Terra (with whom they’ve been on fairly good terms with since defeating Thanos months ago).

And then it’s the big day. She sneaks Peter one last farewell kiss in bed before running off with Nebula to get ready.

The Nova Corps had been generous enough to offer them rooms to stay in during the whole ordeal—their way of saying, “Thanks for getting rid of Thanos for us,” Peter had guessed—and Nebula pushes Gamora down in a chair in front of a vanity. (Because, apparently, Nebula helping bring down Thanos resulted in her criminal records getting expunged as well, and Peter tried to give her a congratulatory high-five for it, but she interpreted it as an attack and simply hit him in the face in return. Gamora couldn’t stop laughing for nearly ten minutes.)

“Hair is so troublesome,” Nebula says with a _tsk_ sound, but starts doing Gamora’s hair anyway. For whatever reason, despite having no hair herself, Nebula used to do Gamora’s hair for fun when they were younger. _Sisterly bonding_ , they’d called it in hushed whispers during the late hours of the night, Nebula fascinating herself with all the different ways she could braid Gamora’s hair. “What a disadvantage in battle.”

Gamora relaxes into Nebula’s touch with a smirk. “Yet, somehow, you are talented when it comes to doing it.”

She pictures Nebula rolling her eyes as she parts Gamora’s hair and starts weaving the pieces together. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable, and, for once, Gamora finds herself able to truly enjoy their quiet moments together without fearing Thanos or his guards finding and stopping them.

“Any specific requests?” Nebula asks.

“Just do your best,” Gamora says with a shrug. She may have hair, but styling it has never been one of her interests (well, except coloring it). That’d always been Nebula’s department.

And Nebula truly does take creative license with it this time, braiding it carefully before pinning it into a loose bun, slightly off-center. Then she takes things even _further_ , reaching for the small vase of flowers they’d received as _Congratulations!_ from the Nova Corps and pulling some of the white flowers out. They remind Gamora of the ones she’d seen on Terra with Peter— _daisies_ , he’d called them through his laughter as she’d sneezed.

Fortunately, these ones don’t have obnoxious pollen and are smaller than Terran daisies. Nebula weaves a couple of them into her hair and, honestly, the fact that this whole wedding thing is even happening and Nebula’s here to support her as her _sister_ and she’s doing her hair and Thanos is dead and gone forever and—

Gamora takes a deep, grounding breath. It’s a lot.

“There.” Nebula steps back, meeting Gamora’s eyes in the mirror. “If you mess it up, I’ll kill you.”

Turning her head slightly, Gamora sees some of Nebula’s work in her reflection and it really _is_ her best, because Nebula had never done anything quite as _intricate_ as this when they were children. Gamora smiles.

“Thank you, Nebula,” she says quietly, suddenly overcome with an emotion she can’t quite identify. She turns around to look at Nebula. “Thank you for everything.”

Nebula dismisses her gratitude with a roll of her eyes, but the emotion there is visible. Gamora stands up and pulls Nebula into a hug, and, for a moment, they’re not adults, they’re little girls trying to survive together in a galaxy that had taken so much from them. She knows Nebula is feeling it, too, because when Gamora ends the hug moments later, Nebula’s hand find hers, just like old times, and Gamora squeezes it reassuringly.

 _We’re going to be okay, Nebula_ , a young voice echoes in Gamora’s mind. _Someday._

“You should finish getting ready,” Nebula says, clearing her throat and pulling her hand back to herself. “Wouldn’t want to be late to your own wedding.”

“Yeah.” Gamora smiles.

From there, she puts on a simple white dress she’d gotten back on Terra after defeating Thanos, when she’d mentioned plans to eventually marry Peter to a very curious Natasha Romanoff, only to find a dress tucked into her things the next day with a teasing note written in the Terran language called “English.”

( _You’ll be needing this soon. You’re welcome. –Nat_ , it read, according to Peter, who’d just given her this _look_ upon reading the words and glancing at the dress.)

It’s nothing grand, more of a sun dress than anything else, but that’s just how she and Peter operate, really. Simplicity.

Nebula helps her with the zipper in the back and Gamora blinks and suddenly she’s holding flowers and walking down an aisle— _the_ aisle—with Nebula at her side.

They’re in this beautiful garden, close to the Nova Corps’ building. All sorts of flowers and plants surround them, providing a colorful backdrop to the ceremony. Kraglin and Mantis cheer loudly from their front row seats, earning them some curious glances from the few Nova Corps officials who’d come to support. Dey just nods with this small smile on his face. Tony Stark is filming with his weird Terran phone device while the rest of the Avengers just watch expectantly. Natasha’s beaming.

And, of course, Peter’s down at the end of the aisle with Nova Prime herself, who’d offered to officiate because, well, why not, and the rest of the team is there, too. Drax is shirtless, Rocket’s in his usual outfit (at least it’s _clean_ for once), and Groot at least had the decency to put a bowtie on.

Then there’s Peter, who’s in a nice button-up shirt and dress pants, looking at her with this expression of awe and raw emotion and Gamora finds herself walking a tad faster, this dumb smile on her face.

“Maybe he’s not as much of an idiot as I thought,” Nebula murmurs to her, looking a little less stone-faced than usual. Gamora takes it as a win, affectionately bumping her shoulder against Nebula’s.

Finally, _finally_ , they reach their destination, and Nebula gives her shoulder a little squeeze before stepping off to the side. Gamora takes a deep breath and stands beside Peter, glancing up at him. He smiles and sneaks his right hand into her left. She shifts her flowers to her right and looks up at Nova Prime.

“Thank you all for coming here today,” she begins, addressing the crowd. “We’re here to celebrate the union of Peter Quill of Terra and Gamora of Zen-Whoberi.”

As Nova Prime continues, Gamora can’t stop herself from watching Peter out of the corner of her eye. He blinks quickly, his smile tightening, before glancing at her again, and she grins.

Somehow, it’s already time for the vows, Nebula taking her flowers from her as she turns to face Peter properly and, yeah, okay, he’s crying before he even starts talking, and Gamora can’t help but laugh at him.

“You should be joyous,” Drax scolds from behind Peter. “It is your wedding day.”

“It’s just kind of emotional, man,” Peter manages, sniffling as he looks back at Drax like he’s crazy. “How can you _not_ cry at your own wedding?”

Drax looks unimpressed. “I was too joyous.”

Rocket rolls his eyes and Groot just lets out this soft grunt, offering his sympathy to Peter.

“Alright, alright,” Gamora cuts in, carefully brushing Peter’s tears away with her thumb.  

“Thanks.” Peter clears his throat, holding her hands again. “Uh, anyway, vows. Yeah. Okay. Here we go…For those who don’t know,” he looks out at their small audience, “Gamora and I first met here on Xandar when I was trying to sell this Orb I stole, and then she tried to steal it from me so _she_ could sell it, and then Rocket and Groot over here got involved—“

“You had a bounty on your head for forty-thousand units!” Rocket insists.

“That was our bounty!” Kraglin adds from the audience.

“Yeah, okay, thanks, _anyway_ we all fought and totally caused this huge public disturbance,” at that, Nova Prime gives Peter this _look_ , and he clears his throat again, shaking his head, “and what I’m _trying_ to get at here is you never really know how some stupid little thing you do could change your life, because I stole the Orb looking to get a quick buck out of it, but instead I got this team, this—this _family_ , and then Gamora was just…she was the most beautiful out of all of us in this little group, y’know? I’m pretty sure if you ask anyone on the team, they’d agree. Not just beautiful on the outside, I mean, on the inside, because she’s the one who pushed us to give up the Orb for free to protect people, rather than sell it for money, and…”

He trails off, pressing his lips together. She squeezes his hands.

“And we haven’t looked back since,” he continues. “She’s the reason we are who we are today, honestly. And she’s the reason I’m who I am today, too.”

“Quill was already an asshole on his own, pre-Gamora,” Rocket whispers _oh-so-quietly_ to Drax, who barks out a laugh, and Groot just looks between them in embarrassment, and, and—

It really wouldn’t be their wedding if nobody was being an asshole rather than respectful, so Peter just ignores them.

“I love you, Gamora,” he says, looking at her intently. “More than I ever thought you could love someone. And here I thought I’d never find this, find _happiness_ like this, after I left Earth, but then…here you are, with me, and there is so much out there I want to do with you, more Earth music I have yet to discover and dance moves I have yet to learn, and the things that meant so much to me before suddenly aren’t fun unless you’re there with me to experience them. We’ve been through a lot in the time we’ve been together, and there’s no telling how many more obstacles we’ll have to overcome in the future—probably a _lot_ , knowing the team—but what I _do_ know is as long as we’re together, we’re unbeatable, and I promise to always have your back against every enemy and challenge we face, for as long as I’m able to, because you’re worth it. You deserve so _much_ , so many good things, the entire world, err, galaxy, even, and I just want to stand by you through it all.”

He concludes with a deep breath, his eyes misty again, and now Gamora’s the one choking back tears. She notices Mantis hugging Kraglin in the front row, while he sniffles and her antennae glow as she cries his tears. Rocket’s making a point to look down at the ground, carefully swiping a paw over his eyes while Drax nods solemnly, approving Peter’s words. A few tears streak down Groot’s bark, but he offers her a smile.

“Gamora?” Nova Prime prompts softly. Gamora nods, quickly blinking away her tears and taking a calming breath.

“Thank you, Peter. Your words mean more to me than I could ever describe.” He smiles at that, and she swears her heart melts a little, as it always does when she’s with him. “I also find our…unconventional meeting to be a very endearing part about us and our relationship. It makes it special, in a way. We were just two thieves trying to find places for ourselves in an unforgiving galaxy and, as fate would have it, those places for us were together, with our friends, teaming up to protect people. And for someone who grew up terrorizing others, always surrounded by enemies, you uniting this team that’s readily accepted me was a gift far larger than any other I’d received before.”

She briefly looks over at the others, who are all watching her with small smiles. “Love was something I thought I’d forgotten long ago. Yes, I could be an ally, perhaps even a _friend_ , but a lover? A _wife?_ That had always been out of reach for me, something I’d never even _considered_ a possibility, no matter how far away I could get from Thanos. But then you showed up with your Terran music and warmth and open heart, challenging me to become the ‘best version of myself,’ as I believe you put it once. We were two lost souls wandering the galaxy for our entire lives before we met, and I’m so grateful to be able to call you _home_. As you said, we’re stronger together, and we can overcome any challenge we face. I don’t remember much from my home world, but what I _do_ know is, according to my people, this union is eternal, larger than life itself. As we bind ourselves—our souls—together now, we will forever be bound, even in the stars once our lives come to an end. I promise to love you to the best of my ability, both now and beyond this life, and I look forward to spending eternity with you.”

Drax can insist there’s no crying at weddings all he wants, but Gamora doesn’t care, because the stray tears that escape her eyes during her speech are worth it. And now Peter just wraps her up in this tight embrace, holding her against him as he shudders with a soft cry. It’s a dramatic and somewhat unconventional display in the middle of a wedding, sure, but it’s for good reason. They’ve truly been through a _lot_ together, overcoming their pasts while dealing with the monsters of the present, and it’s groundbreaking to think that today is just a pure _victory_ for them.

“Peter,” she murmurs with a soft laugh after a few moments, patting his back, “we aren’t even married yet.”

“Yeah, I know, sorry, I just…” He laughs a little, too, and pulls away from her, swiping at his eyes with his hands. “I really love you, y’know?”

“I love you, too,” she murmurs.

“I am Groot,” Groot says, sounding so much like his younger self in that moment, little tears escaping his eyes as he holds Rocket against his chest, who’s trying to get his crying under control.

Rocket waves his paw blindly at them with a sniffle. “Just ignore me, just—finish the d’ast wedding already, will ya?”

“Idiots,” Nebula mutters from behind Gamora, but Gamora notices the way her voice catches on the word.

“What is _wrong_ with all of you?” Drax looks around at each of them.

Nova Prime’s just patiently waiting for them all to get their shit together (as Peter would eloquently put it) when Gamora turns her attention back to her. Peter smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, sorry, no more vows, let’s just keep going.”

“It’s an emotional day,” Nova Prime says with a small smile. “Do you have rings?”

“Groot,” Peter says, turning back to Groot, who holds his hand out toward them. He opens his fist, revealing two silver wedding bands Gamora’s pretty sure Peter sneakily picked up while they were on Earth. “Thanks, buddy.”

“I am Groot.” He smiles as Peter picks up the rings, handing his to her.

They look to Nova Prime, who nods before continuing.

“Do you, Peter, take this woman, Gamora, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

The two words make Gamora’s insides dance, as her heart beats more quickly and she’s pretty sure her hands are shaking.

“Do you, Gamora, take this man, Peter, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“Now, the rings,” Nova Prime directs. “Do you remember what to say?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter reassures her, sliding the ring onto Gamora’s finger. “You are the love of my life and you are my very best friend.”

Gamora’s so focused on the new feeling of the ring on her finger—though she has many other rings, none of have felt _quite_ as important as this—that she nearly forgets to return the gesture. She quickly slides Peter’s onto his finger. “You are the love of my life and you are my very best friend.”

Nova Prime looks between them then, smiling. “Then I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Peter, of course, doesn’t hesitate on that, pulling her forward and meeting her big smile with his lips. She somewhat registers the sounds of everyone cheering happily around them, _especially_ the team.

It’s all so surreal, she’s not even sure how long she kisses Peter for before he’s tugging her back down the aisle with this playful giggle, nearly dislodging the flowers carefully placed in her hair.  

“Idiot!” Nebula yells after them, almost affectionately.

* * *

The reception in a rather lavish ballroom (almost _too_ fancy for a group as rowdy as them, Gamora thinks) consists of food, dancing, dancing, and dancing, and…did she mention _dancing?_

She has about all of twenty minutes to eat food and cut the cake and then _eat_ the cake before Peter’s pulling her out of her seat with, “May I have this dance, my lovely and wonderful wife?”

“I think I’m starting to like ‘babe’ more,” she says, but she follows him anyway, intertwining their fingers.

Taking after Terran tradition, they have their “first dance” together as a married couple before opening the dance floor to everyone else. Fittingly, they dance to “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” as Peter claims it’s biographical of their relationship, but it’s also nostalgic for both of them, forever a reminder of their first mission together to defeat Ronan.

And, well, that was a while ago. Gamora has yet to sit down since Peter first pulled her up, as she’s been talking to the various guests who attended and taking turns with the other Guardians to check on the food table, making sure Rocket isn’t still sneaking food from it. (It’s become something of a game, apparently.)

Finally, she catches a break when she runs into Drax on the dance floor and, in a very, very rare moment, he offers her his hand.

“It would be an honor to dance with the bride,” he says, and she has to force herself to stop gaping at him.

“Drax, I know how you feel about dancing—“

“This is a very special occasion, Gamora,” he explains. She places her hand in his. “Tonight is for celebrating you and Quill, and dancing is something very sacred in your relationship. It’s how you communicate your feelings.”

“Uh-huh…” She just stares at him as he places a hand on her hip.

“You are both very important to me,” he says. “Let me convey that through dance.”

And he does, as they sway slowly to whatever Terran song is playing now from Peter’s Zune (which, since traveling to Terra, has been upgraded to hold more songs). Drax dances with her like a father dances with her daughter, she thinks, swallowing against a lump forming in her throat, and she really, _really_ makes sure to cherish each moment of what will probably be the only dance they ever share.

When the song ends, he releases her with a rare smile, which she returns with a shaky, “Thank you,” because maybe she’ll never get to dance with her own father from her childhood again, and maybe Drax will never get to share a dance with his own daughter, but, at the very least, they’re able to share this moment together.

Later, Rocket comes by, grumbling about being bored with nothing to tinker with—Dey had apparently stopped him from taking apart some Nova Corps equipment—and another slow song starts playing over the speakers. Gamora silently debates with herself before remembering Drax’s words about this night being special, and she bends over, offering her hand to Rocket.

“Would you like to dance?” she asks. “Perhaps that will ease your boredom.”

Rocket looks taken aback as he stares at her, wide-eyed. “ _Whoa_ , look, I ain’t no homewrecker—“

“It’s fine, Rocket,” she says. “Dance with me.”

He hesitates for a few moments before groaning, placing his paws in her hands. “Sure, fine, whatever, just don’t come whinin’ to me tomorrow when your back’s killin’ ya.”

It’s challenging, admittedly, having to lean down closer to Rocket’s height while, but it’s not entirely uncomfortable. They fall into a lighthearted conversation while they’re swaying, Rocket’s paws grasping her fingers with a sort of gentleness she’s never quite observed in him before. He snickers over this and that, telling her all about the wedding thus far from his (apparently, very different) point of view.

“I swear, Quill wouldn’t quit cryin’ this mornin’!” he says. “He was damn near inconsolable before the d’ast ceremony even started!”

“You say this as if we didn’t all see _you_ cry.”

“Hey, at least I was able to make it down the frickin’ aisle before I got emotional. He was practically cryin’ the whole way down!” He laughs. “Quill’ll always be a crybaby.”

“He’s _our_ crybaby,” she says.

“ _Your_ crybaby. Like hell am I taking responsibility over that humie,” he says with a shudder.

As the song ends, Rocket scampers off in search of alcohol, leaving Gamora to roll her eyes. She’s ready to find Peter and retire to their table when Groot approaches her, holding a glass of water.

“I am Groot,” he says, offering her the glass.

“Thank you,” she says, accepting it and taking a few quick sips. “Are you having fun?”

“I am Groot.”

“You’re right, it is pretty hectic,” she says, studying the crowd with Groot. She catches sight of Peter then, talking to Tony Stark and the other Avengers who came. Thor pulls him into a tight hug. She smirks as Peter’s face contorts in pain. “I’m glad you’re having fun, though.”

“I am Groot?”

She looks up at Groot with a nod. “Yeah. I’m having fun, too. This is a big night for Peter and myself. And everyone, really.”

“I am Groot.”

“This family is not very conventional, but I agree. It’s a good family.”

For whatever reason, Peter apparently has an affinity for the slow Terran songs, because _another_ one starts playing. She sets her glass down on a nearby table and turns to Groot with a knowing smile, holding out a hand. “May I have this dance, Groot?”

His expression brightens considerably, which is saying a lot, considering how much he’d already been beaming during their conversation. She briefly recalls Groot’s younger self dancing enthusiastically to just about _everything_ , so it’s no surprise when he readily takes her hand and pulls her closer. They start dancing together slowly, and, honestly, Gamora finds herself missing little Groot just a bit more in that moment, because he just grew up so _quickly_ , and she’s not exactly sure when or how it happened.

“I am Groot,” he says as he twirls her. She laughs a little.

“Peter taught you well.”

“I am Groot.”

She almost wishes the night would last forever, too. It’s so peaceful, so tranquil, just a night dedicated to celebrating them and dancing and not having to worry about any threats to the galaxy or how to make enough money to pay for fuel for the Quadrant or whatever. At least the memories of the night will be ingrained in her forever.

“I am Groot?”

At Groot’s question, she looks at him curiously. “Are you afraid things will change now?”

He nods.

“Don’t worry, Groot,” she reassures him, offering him a smile. “They won’t. Yes, Peter and I will be gone for the next week and you and the others will be on your own during that time, but nothing’s going to change between all of us, _especially_ between you and me.”

Ever since Groot’s baby days, she’s had a special kind of relationship with him, maternal, in a way, and it’s somewhat carried over into Groot’s adulthood. He smiles at her words, and as the song comes to an end, she gestures for him to lean down closer to her.

“Thank you for dancing with me, Groot,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him. He carefully reciprocates, pushing his forehead against hers with a soft grunt. She pulls away after a few moments.

“I am Groot.”

“I love you, too.” A loud yell— _Rocket_ , she rolls her eyes—draws her attention then, and she looks around Groot to see Drax pick Rocket up to remove him from the food table for, what, the _fourth_ time?

Before she can say anything, Groot offers a quick, “I am Groot,” before heading in Rocket and Drax’s direction, probably to diffuse the situation. She sighs, retrieving the glass of water Groot had brought her and taking a quick sip.

“Hey, babe,” Peter greets as he walks up to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing a kiss to the side of her head.

“Hey,” she returns, offering him her water. He accepts it happily, downing the rest of it. “Rocket’s terrorizing the food again.”

“It’s fine, I think things are winding down soon, anyway,” he says with a shrug, putting the empty glass down on the table. “I kinda wish it would never end, y’know?”

“Yeah.” She smiles up at him. “Thank you.”

“Uh…you’re welcome?” he says, eyebrow raised. “What did I do?”

“This,” she exhales, gesturing to the entire room. “It’s…I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“Well, this is just as much _your_ doing as it is mine,” he insists, pulling her closer. “Thank _you_ for marrying _my_ dumb ass.”

She rests her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes for a quick moment of rest. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Peter Quill. I’m so happy I can finally call you my husband.”

Her words seem to take him aback, as he turns his head to look down at her.

“For once in my life,” she continues quietly, “when I ask myself if I’d change anything about my past, undo anything that’s happened to me…my answer is no.”

When she opens her eyes to look back up at him, his eyes are wet again—she can almost hear Rocket’s bark of laughter from earlier ringing through her ears—and he just nods, understanding.

“Yeah. Me, too,” he manages shakily, and she turns her body to properly embrace him.

* * *

It’s strange, to think this night of celebration has come to an end, after so many shared moments with her friends and family in a setting she would have never predicted (her _wedding_ , the words still sound foreign to her, even after it’s _over_ ), but as she and Peter pack up their things for their early departure the next morning, she realizes this isn’t an end, but a beginning.

A completely new beginning, following the new beginning she’d achieved with Nebula in defeating Thanos months ago. The beginnings never end, really, as each day provides her with the start of some new thing, new chance to make memories with Peter and Nebula and the others.

“I suppose I’ll keep an eye on your idiots while you’re gone,” Nebula offers, her generosity carefully guarded behind her grumbling. “Make sure they don’t do anything foolish without you.”

“Wow. Thank you, Nebula, that’s really nice of you,” Peter says a little _too_ happily, prompting Nebula to roll her eyes. “You can stay with us after that, if you want.”

When Nebula looks over at her, Gamora shrugs. “You could.”

“I’d rather not be driven to insanity,” is all Nebula answers before stalking out of the room.

Peter turns to Gamora, a stack of his shirts in hand. “Is that…a no?”

“It’s a maybe,” she says, handing him her shirts.

“Awesome.” He packs them into his bag together. “Hey, wanna go scope out the leftovers? I’m pretty hungry from all this packing.”

“I thought there weren’t any leftovers,” she says, crossing her arms.

“I mean _Rocket’s_ leftovers, since he kept sneaking food from the frickin’ table.”

“In that case, yes.”

Last they’d seen Rocket, he’d passed out on the couch under Groot’s watchful eye. Peter takes Gamora’s hand in his to lead her out the door, and as she feels the smooth texture of his ring against her skin, she ducks her head, smiling to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay honestly, the two things driving me to write this whole oneshot were: 1. the idea of nebula doing gamora's hair all nice and it's just a cool sisterly bonding moment, and 2. gamora dancing with each of the guys from the team during the reception bc that's just how close they all are,,,,, cries
> 
> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	25. “So, how should we break the news that they’re going to have a new baby brother or sister?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> firesoulstuff: ok I think this is how requests are done (let me know if I'm wrong): I just read "Ooh child" which involved both Mer and Ari, can you please do one about Peter and Gamora telling Mer that she's going to be a big sister?!?!
> 
> anon: Starmora 097: “So, how should we break the news that they’re going to have a new baby brother or sister?” New Sister for Mer?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((this is a continuation of the other starmora pregnancy/baby/fam oneshots, aka chapters 7, 11, 14, 15, and 21!!!))
> 
> combining these two lovely baby prompts ☆ i love writing the little starmora fam!!!!!! it’s so much fun

“Okay, so, we all hold our cups like this.” Peter demonstrates for them, holding his up with his pinkie finger sticking out. “Then we clink them together and say, ‘cheers.’”

“Cheers,” Gamora says, tapping her cup against his.

“Cheers!”

Peter smiles as Mer stretches her arm out toward him, pushing her cup to his. She beams up at him, fascinated by the new Terran “game” he’s introducing to the family: having a tea party.

Mer turns to Gamora and repeats the “Cheers!” with her.

“Good, good. And now, we drink,” Peter instructs, bringing the cup to his lips to drink some of the water.

Gamora gently pulls the cup away from Mer after a few moments. “Not the whole thing at once. You’ll make yourself sick.”

“Okay,” Mer complies, setting the cup back down on the table. “Can I eat the snacks now?”

“Yes, now you may eat the snacks,” Peter says, gesturing to the plate of the closest thing to Terran cookies he’s come across in his travels across the galaxy. Mer grabs one and bites into it, chewing happily. Gamora also takes one and begins to eat.

Though he’d never actually played “tea party” himself on Earth, Peter had seen it in a show or movie at some point with little girls, or sometimes heard about it from friends at school who had younger sisters. Now that Mer’s three (in _Terran_ years, Gamora often reminds him, though Mer, of course, favors the larger sounding number), he figured, what the hell, might as well pass on the weird make-believe game from Earth. Gamora seems to be having fun, too, tapping her cookie against Mer’s with a quick, “Cheers.”

“I like this game, Daddy,” Mer says after finishing her cookie. “It’s yummy.”

“Yeah, it’s fun,” he says, taking another sip of water. “And good for practicing manners.”

“Can Groot come play, too?” Mer requests, grabbing another cookie—which Gamora quickly intervenes, breaking it in half and taking one of the pieces for herself.

“I don’t see why not.” He grins, because as much fun as Mer has with her parents, the _real_ party starts for her when Groot enters the picture; he’s _definitely_ her favorite Guardian. “Tell him we have cookies.”

“’Kay.” With that, Mer jumps out of her seat, half of a cookie in hand, and rushes out of the kitchen. Her tiny footsteps scamper down the hall, fading as she heads to Groot’s room.

“This is an interesting game,” Gamora comments, turning to Peter. “You said it was from Terra?”

“I never actually played it myself,” Peter admits, fiddling with his cup. “It was a game that only girls played, I guess, so I never had a reason to play it until now. Boys should think about getting in on it, though. Free excuse to eat cookies.”

“It’s fun,” she says, placing her half of the cookie down on her plate. “I can tell Mer’s enjoying it, and I’m sure Groot will, too.”

“As long as Mer’s having fun, he’ll have fun,” he points out before leaning back in his seat with a sigh. “So now that we have her cornered…how should we break the news that she’s going to have a new baby brother or sister?”

Gamora presses her lips together, also leaning back in her chair. He catches a brief glimpse of her stomach—her bump is finally starting to show—in her movement, again trying to comprehend the fact that, holy _shit_ , they’re going to have _another_ kid.

“I think we should just be honest,” she says after several moments. “The sooner we tell her, the more time we have to fully prepare her, since things will be changing.”

Mer’s only three, but Peter can tell she’s a bright kid, even for her young age (honestly, he thinks she gets it from Gamora). She picks up on things he and Gamora tell her quickly, and loves to learn new things, always asking them questions about this and that.

There’s no telling how many questions the “younger sibling” bomb will prompt.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he admits with a nod. “I hope she doesn’t hate us.”

“I don’t think she will,” Gamora says thoughtfully, reaching her hand over the table to squeeze Peter’s. “Even if she reacts negatively at first, she’ll come around with time and get used to it. She’s too much like you to be mad at us forever.”

“Okay, first of all, she’s _way_ more like _you_ ,” Peter insists, biting into a cookie. “She does that thing you do with your face, where you scrunch it—yeah, that, _exactly_ that—and is _way_ more easygoing than I was at her age.”

Before Gamora can reply, Mer returns to the room with Groot in tow. Peter swallows quickly, placing the cookie down on the plate. (Are his hands _shaking?_ It’s not like it’s the end of the world, they’re just going to tell Mer some…some _world-changing_ news, no big deal.)

(Okay, _yes_ big deal, _very_ big deal.)

Per usual, Gamora’s expression remains calm. She greets Groot with a playful grin, and he offers his typical wave in return. Peter waves as well before Groot awkwardly slides into a seat much smaller than himself beside Peter, across from Mer.

“It’s a tea party, Groot,” Mer explains, trying her best to get the words out correctly (it still comes out in a typical toddler jumble, but if they can understand Groot, they can understand pretty much _anything_ ). “You eat cookies and drink tea, but it’s actually water.”

“Real tea isn’t that good,” Peter explains with a shrug.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Gamora adds.

“What’s that?” Mer performs the patented Gamora-nose-scrunch as Groot picks up Peter’s cup, downing the rest of it.

“It just means it takes a while to like it,” Peter says, hiding his quivering hands in his lap as he leans over the table, closer to Gamora and Mer. “Hey, uh, Mer, Mommy and I have something important to tell you.”

Mer looks up at him through her big, dark eyes, blinking innocently. He opens his mouth to start speaking, but the words aren’t quite formed yet, so he looks to Gamora for help.

“ _Mommy_ has something important to tell you!” he says.

Gamora manages to sneak a quick eye roll in before Mer turns to her—they’re trying to put off Mer becoming the inevitable sass machine she’s destined to be as long as possible, as she’s growing up surrounded by the galaxy’s biggest assholes, a title Peter takes pride in, thank you very much—and, much more composed than Peter, she offers Mer a small smile.

“You’re going to have a baby brother or sister,” she says carefully. “So you’re going to be a big sister.”

Mer processes the words for a few moments. “A baby?”

“Yeah, Mommy’s pregnant,” Peter says, finding his voice. “That means there’s a baby in her tummy right now.”

As Gamora nods and gestures to her stomach, Mer leans toward her so she can see it more closely. She lays a small hand on it. “I want a sister!”

Peter gives a nervous chuckle. “Well, you see, that’s the fun part, we don’t really get to _decide_ that—“

“I want a sister like Mommy has a sister,” Mer declares, placing both of her hands on Gamora’s belly. “Hi, baby sister!”

“I am Groot,” Groot says with a huff that’s akin to laughter. Peter sighs.

“If it’s a boy, you still have to love him, Mer,” Gamora says, covering Mer’s hands with her own. “We don’t get to choose if it’s a boy or a girl, okay? Either way, you’re going to be a big sister.”

“So you get to help us take care of your baby brother or sister, and you get to play with them, too,” Peter adds.

“Okay,” Mer says easily. Gamora lifts Mer up and places her on her lap, pressing a kiss to the side of her head.

“Are you happy, Mer?” Peter asks, handing her his unfinished cookie. “Are you excited to be a big sister?”

“Yeah!” Mer says while taking a bite, so, okay, Peter may or may not have just bribed her into liking this whole “big sister” thing with a cookie, but, _whatever_. “When’s the baby coming?”

“In a few months,” Gamora says. “So that won’t be for a while from now.”

“I can’t wait to meet my sister,” Mer says, her attention focused on her cookie.

Peter meets Gamora’s eyes above Mer’s head with a barely controlled grimace as Groot offers a sympathetic, “I am Groot,” before eating two cookies at once.

Which then prompts Mer to try to copy him, and in the chaos of completely confiscating the cookies that ensues afterward (“No, Groot, you can’t eat anymore either.”), Peter just hopes the world won’t end when the baby _does_ arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!! :D


	26. “You’re so beautiful when you’re just waking up.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Starmora-Little Star Lady (Starmora child), second baby one the way-“You’re so beautiful when you’re just waking up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time for some starmora fam cuddles!! and as someone who personally grew up in a co-sleeping family (i’m sure you can imagine how thrilled my parents were once my sister and i moved into our own room, ha!) i wanted to borrow that experience for starmora aaayyyyy
> 
> ((this is a continuation of the other starmora pregnancy/baby/fam oneshots, aka chapters 7, 11, 14, 15, 21, and 25!!!))

Being a parent is pretty great, in Peter’s opinion. Having Groot aboard the Milano and the Quadrant as a baby-of-sorts had only really given him a taste of the feelings that would eventually swallow him whole when Mer had been born.

There are downsides, of course. For one, though the Quadrant has more space, there’s not exactly space for a _family_ —at least, not one with small children.

And every time Gamora grumbles about being ready for their unborn kid to just be born already, to spare her the fatigue and the sickness, Peter just tries to mentally prepare himself to share a bed with not one, not two, but _three_ other people, because space (pun unintended, _ha_ ) is limited, and though there’s already a designated Mer room, it doesn’t pertain to sleeping.

Now he wakes up to all kinds of things. Before, Gamora’s tendency to move around in her sleep often led to interesting positions when they woke up, and now, Peter’s woken to both green _and_ white feet in his face, often on separate occasions, but sometimes at the _same time_. Or Mer just decides to hell with the pillow space they provide her in between them, instead opting to sleep on top of him the entire night.

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

For whatever strange reason, the universe decides to spare him this morning, as he wakes _not_ to a body part (or _entire body_ ) in his face, but to some space. He opens his eyes slowly.

Both Gamora and Mer are still asleep, Mer tucked into her mother’s chest like it’s the comfiest part of the bed—which, from personal experience, Peter would _probably_ have to agree with. He smiles at the sight, breathing out a sigh.

Though it’s a peaceful awakening, the covers are, per usual, in disarray, favoring Gamora’s side of the bed. He tugs them back toward himself gently, evening things out.

The movement jostles Mer lightly, just enough to stir her. She turns over, now facing him as he holds his breath, hoping she doesn’t wake. Though she’s still little, Mer’s made it clear that once she’s up, she’s up, and there’s _no_ going back.

(He and Gamora often resolved this issue by sleepily sending Mer to Groot’s room, figuring she could go keep him company, since he seemed to be one of the only other early morning risers on board.)

Luckily, Mer remains asleep as she cuddles up to him. He wraps an arm around her small form.

Gamora wakes then, laying a hand over his on Mer’s back. She eyes him tiredly, offering him a small smile.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, carefully leaning over Mer to peck her lips. “You’re so beautiful when you’re just waking up.”

“Maybe I should sleep more often, then.”

“I’d miss you too much.” He moves his hand from Mer to Gamora’s belly, rubbing gently. “How’s Tiny Dancer doing?”

“Not dancing,” Gamora says. “Yet.”

Baby #2 has a bit of a reputation for kicking, at least more than Mer seemed to ever do. Though it’s a fun way to freak some of the others out (especially Rocket), it tires Gamora out pretty quickly.

She yawns.

“Hey, if you wanna go back to sleep, I can take care of the Mer-bear morning show for a bit,” he says, glancing down at the still sleeping Mer. Looks can be deceiving, though, and he’s half-expecting her to jump up, completely awake and ready to start the day, at any moment now. “You should probably get some more rest before the baby starts kicking up a storm.”

“I’m not sure I can argue with that offer,” Gamora admits, pulling the covers up more closely to her chin. “It’s very tempting.”

He grins. “Goodnight, babe.”

After she closes her eyes and relaxes into the pillow, Mer, predictably, wakes up, turning onto her back. She looks between both of her parents before settling her eyes on Peter, probably because he appears to be the only one awake.

“And good morning to you, my little Star-Lady,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her head. “We gotta be quiet because Mommy’s still sleeping, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy,” she whispers (well, as good as any other three-year-old can whisper). “G’mornin’.”

He glances at Gamora for a moment, admiring her ability to resume sleeping just like _that_. He _really_ needs to ask her to teach him how to do that.

“Hey, wanna help me out with something?” he whispers to Mer.

“What?” she whispers back.

“Let’s make some food for Mommy to eat when she wakes up,” he whispers conspiratorially, sitting up. He carefully pulls Mer up with him, setting her in his lap. “It’ll be a surprise. Can you help me?”

She nods enthusiastically, reaching her arms up to loop around his neck. He lifts her as he slides out of the bed, holding her with one arm while pushing the covers from his side closer to Gamora with the other, now that she has the whole bed (and their blankets) for herself.

Mer rests her head against his shoulder as he quietly walks away from the bed and out of the room, waving at Gamora’s sleeping form (a habit learned from a certain, overfriendly tree) as they leave.

“Can we make food for the baby, too?” Mer asks once Peter closes the door as quietly as he can.

He looks at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Well, when Mommy eats it, the baby…also eats…it…I guess.”

Thus begins their usual game of twenty (or _more_ ) questions, Mer cornering Peter more easily than he’s ready to admit, and he can’t help but wonder what reign of terror the little fighter training for combat in Gamora’s belly will bring to the table when they’re born.

(He thinks briefly of Nebula and Gamora, who are sisters, each scary in her own way, but flat-out _terrifying_ when working together, and suddenly he’s fearful of what two products of Gamora and himself can do together, _oh, god_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come send me more starmora prompts on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!! (or come chat with me about spider-man: homecoming bc i saw it today and i have Feelings)


	27. “I don’t think we need anymore stuffed animals in the bed.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Starmora + Mer; “I don’t think we need anymore stuffed animals in the bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((this is a continuation of the other starmora pregnancy/baby/fam oneshots, aka chapters 7, 11, 14, 15, 21, 25, and 26!!!))
> 
> and now, after a week dedicated to pepperony, we return to our regularly scheduled starmora content :) 
> 
> icymi: [read my oneshot about starmora going on a double date with pepperony](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11537610)!!!

“Which Terran animal is that?” 

“A dog!” Mer answers happily, pointing down at the picture in her book.

“Which one is this one?”

“A bunny!”

Peter smiles from where he’s sitting on the ground, putting clothes away in their drawers, as Gamora quizzes Mer on different animals in one of the children’s books they’d picked up on Earth during their last visit. Mer’s curled into Gamora’s side, balancing the small book on Gamora’s (very _large_ ) baby bump.

He doesn’t know how Gamora does it, honestly.

From what he’d learned during her pregnancy with Mer and his research on human babies back then and now, she’s nearing 40 Earth weeks, which is, like… _insane_ , because _how_ a baby can stay inside of someone for so long, he genuinely has no clue.

And it’s taken its toll on her a lot recently, limiting her in what she’s physically capable of doing a lot more than her pregnancy with Mer ever did—probably because Mer arrived early. Even just _walking_ is hard for Gamora now, from what Peter’s seen, though (of course) she doesn’t like to necessarily admit it.

So she spends most of her time holed up in their room now, only getting up for necessities, such as food and going to the bathroom. They’ve docked on Xandar to wait out the arrival of the baby, because the last thing Peter wants is a repeat of the disaster that was Mer’s birth—Gamora’s water breaking in the middle of a fight with Sovereign forces many jumps away from the nearest hospital—and he’s not sure how much longer space travel would’ve been safe for Gamora, anyway, given her… _condition_.

But, of course, she’s never without company in their room. Usually at least either Peter or Mer or Groot is there with her, but the others stop by often as well, and Peter’s starting to fear their room is becoming the new communal room.

“Mommy, if Rocket’s a raccoon like the ones on Terra, isn’t he from Terra like Daddy?” Mer’s question breaks Peter out of his thoughts.

“Some special Terran animals can live on other planets,” Gamora says. “Rocket is special.”

Mer nods very seriously. “Rocket is very special.”

“You should tell him that,” Peter says, biting back a smirk. “He’d love it.”

“Okay!” Mer chirps happily, carefully maneuvering around Gamora—they’d really, _really_ enforced the whole “be gentle” thing since Gamora’s been pregnant—and clambering off the bed.

“If Rocket’s ego becomes unbearable because if this, it’s your fault,” Gamora says once Mer’s out of the room.

“I think he could use a little extra love,” Peter says, closing the drawer containing their shirts. He pushes himself up to his feet, walking over to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

She sighs, leaning her head back against the wall. “I’ve had better days.”

“We might have to put an eviction notice up on this one soon,” he says, patting her belly gently. He sits down on the bed, taking the book—which had been balancing perfectly on her bump without any assistance, just proving how _big_ it’s really gotten—and placing it on the nightstand. “I’m starting to get impatient.”

“You’re not the only one,” she says. As she readjusts her position, she suddenly scrunches her face up in discomfort, reaching a hand underneath her back. She pulls out a plush of what appears to be a cross between a dinosaur and a dog (they’ve picked up a _lot_ of random things on their travels since Mer came around). “Oh, another friend.”

“Mer has many friends,” he comments, glancing over their bed.

It’s large, enough room for the three of them (soon to be _four_ , he reminds himself), but as Mer’s activities shifted more and more to their room recently to spend time with Gamora, her small army of plush “friends” quickly followed her. They’re scattered in the covers and between the pillows. Some are just abandoned on the floor.

“We’re being overrun here,” he jokes, pulling the various stuffed animals from the different places they’re hiding in the bed. After picking up the ones on the floor, he gathers all of them up into a pile beside Gamora’s feet. “I think we have a few more eviction notices to give out.”

“I enjoy their company in the daytime,” she says, adding the dinosaur-dog-thing to the pile. “But it’s a little crowded at night.”

Mer returns then, skipping into the room with—surprise— _another_ stuffed animal, this one closely reminiscing a bunny. She eagerly climbs up onto the bed with it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Peter says, catching her in his hands. She giggles with a “Hey!” as he lifts her up. “We’ve reached the maximum occupancy here.”

“What’s that mean?” she asks.

“It means,” he says, properly holding her, “I don’t think we need any more stuffed animals in the bed.”

Cue a pout. And a plush bunny being shoved in his face. “But Daddy, he’s lonely!”

“He wouldn’t be lonely if the rest of his friends were with him in your room,” he says pointedly, gently pushing the bunny away, “where they all belong.”

“But Mommy will get lonely,” she protests, now holding the bunny out to Gamora.

Gamora offers her a smile, taking the bunny into her hands. “How about this: you and Daddy take all of your stuffed animals back to your room, then choose _three_ to stay with us in here?”

Mer seems to consider the offer for a moment.

“If you can count all of your stuffed animals for me, you may choose _four_ to stay,” Gamora negotiates easily.

“Yeah, we gotta show Mommy your big girl counting, right?” Peter adds, setting Mer down beside the plush pile. “It’ll make her really happy.”

“Will it make the baby happy, too?” Mer asks, turning to look up at Peter.

He can’t help the smile that overtakes his face at that. “It will! It’ll show the baby how awesome of a big sister they’re gonna get.”

Gamora nods encouragingly when Mer looks to her for confirmation.

“Okay! I can count!” Mer declares, taking the bunny from Gamora with an emphatic, “One!”

Peter resumes sitting on the bed, pulling Mer into his lap as she sorts through her pile. She stumbles on a few of the numbers (only those past ten, it should be noted—she’s mastered counting to ten _easily_ by now), but manages to pull through with some hints from both of her parents.

Once she’s counted up her collection, Peter helps her carry them all back to her room. They deliberate over which four will get the privilege of sharing their bed for several minutes (it’s a pretty serious decision, _okay_ ) before gathering up the chosen four and bringing them back to Gamora for her approval.

Then it’s naptime, judging by the heaviness in Mer’s eyes after all the mathematical excitement, and Peter recognizes the same exhaustion in Gamora’s expression. He tucks Mer in beside Gamora (and the four chosen ones, all various animal species that Peter can’t really identify from across the different quadrants), pressing kisses to both of their foreheads.

“But we need a story, Daddy,” Mer protests, already half-asleep against Gamora’s arm.

“Mommy can tell you a story,” he says.

“I want to hear your story as well,” Gamora adds to Mer’s protests.

He ducks his head with a bemused sigh. There’s no way he’s getting out of this one.

So he settles down on the edge of the bed. “Right. Of course. Alright, let’s see, uh…one time, when I was with your Grandpa Yondu, we had to steal this _really_ big thing, right?” Gamora, despite the tiredness in her gaze, gives him a look. He quickly adds a disclaimer to his story: “Uh, stealing is still bad, by the way, Mer.”

By the time he’s halfway through his epic tale, both Gamora and Mer are snoring softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	28. “I could never leave you, I love you too much.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 016 starmora please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW UM this is probably the most angsty thing i’ve written for starmora so far,,,, i must give credit where credit is due! i was inspired by [this fic](http://murdershegoat.tumblr.com/post/158720658245/ill-follow-you-into-the-dark), which was inspired by the song [“i will follow you into the dark” by death cab for cutie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHY1D0tKRA) (or i’m assuming as such given the title of the fic and what happens in it) also sorry i’m so slow at writing these now, i’ve been playing hella splatoon 2 since it came out on friday LMAO
> 
> but yeah anyway uhhh i wanna say warning for character death but I’M TELLING YOU THE ENDING IS HAPPY. KIND OF. WELL. THEY’RE TOGETHER AT THE END SO. THERE IT’S HAPPY OKAY

Peter has to admit, he’s had better plans before.

Plans that didn’t exactly leave him separated from his team while some creepy alien species (that he can’t currently remember the name of) corner him, pinning him to the ground with a blaster pointed to his face.

This…isn’t his best moment.

But that’s the thing, it really should just be a moment. Death, he means. The blaster’s there, all that’s left is to pull the trigger and, _boom_ , he’s done for. The other Guardians can find him—his _body_ —later, in the rubble, hopefully after they’ve taken out all these bastards.

The moment’s drawn out, though. He blinks up at his frozen assailants curiously.

Then he feels…relaxed. It’s like someone’s slipped a pillow under his head, comforting him in his final moments.

Familiar fingers comb through his hair gently, slowly, and he chokes out a gasp.

“ _Gamora?_ ” he asks, tilting his head back farther to see her.

Gamora shifts her legs a little, readjusting the placement of his head in her lap. Then she offers him a small smile, her fingers settling on his scalp. “Hi, Peter.”

He’s not sure if the adrenaline from his near-death has yet to run out or if the sight of her just has his heart fluttering, like it always did, years ago.

“How are you here?” he whispers, blinking against the tears pinching at his eyes. “You…you _died_.”

She doesn’t say anything, simply meeting his eyes. Her smile fades. He glances at the blaster leveled at his head, then back at her.

“Am I…?” he trails off, but she nods. She gets it. She always got it, always got _him_. He blows out a small breath. “Oh, um, wow, that’s… _wow_.”

“I’m sorry, Peter,” she says softly, her eyes suddenly heavy with grief. “You deserved better.”

“I— _what?_ ” He tries to sit up, but he can’t really move aside from his head. He frowns. “Gamora, I had _you_ and that’s, like, better than life itself. I think I was pretty well off.”

His words seem to relieve the tension in her shoulders as she relaxes her muscles a bit, followed by the smile she’d always reserved for him, and, _god,_ he’d missed that smile _so much_ , he can’t believe he’s seeing it again.

“Though, when you… _left_ …” He opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to put the heavy feelings he’d carried in his heart for so long into words. “That was…rough.”

(He’s sugarcoating it. When she’d died, he’d been a mess, and he’s not sure he’s ever _really_ recovered. He still had the team, of course, but they could never fill the void left by Gamora. Nobody could. So he’d filled his time with jobs and drinks and sleepless nights instead, trying to find some semblance of peace, some semblance of closure.)

(He found a little, perhaps.)

“Even though I died, I was still beside you this entire time,” she says, laying a hand on his cheek. He leans into her touch, biting back a sob, his emotions somewhere between grief and joy. “I could never leave you, I love you too much.”

“I just wish I could’ve noticed that before my freakin’ deathbed,” he teases lamely, his voice shaking.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, but her voice is lighter. She takes a deep breath. “You don’t have much time left.”

“Wh-what’s going to happen?” he can’t help but ask a little fearfully, ‘cause, come on, this is _death_ they’re talking about. Sure, Gamora seems to be okay after going through it herself, but she’s _Gamora_. She can do, like, _anything_ without batting an eye.

“Well,” she starts slowly, “when time resumes, you will be shot through the head. It will kill you instantly. The others will find you in a couple of hours.”

He might be pissing himself right now, but he’s not really sure. He swallows nervously. “Are all of the others—“ 

“They’ll be okay,” she reassures him. Despite being trapped in the corner of a dark room, he’s reminded of the first time he met Gamora, when she’d had him pinned, and Xandar’s suns illuminated her form leaning over him. He’s nearly just as blinded by her now.

“Groot was really torn up after you died,” he murmurs. “It took a long time for him to be okay again.”

“Grief never disappears completely, but he will recover from this as well,” she says firmly. “The entire team will be grief-stricken, but they will all be okay, eventually.”

He nods, and something in the air feels different. A pang of anxiety stabs at his heart and he’s suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s dying.

“G-Gamora?” he says frantically, somehow maneuvering his right hand up to her. She takes it as she always has, cradling it between both of her hands. (Despite everything he’s heard about death and cold going together, her hands are as warm as ever, and it comforts him briefly.)

“I’m here, Peter,” she says, squeezing his hand. “I’m not leaving.”

Words are failing him now, so he just nods again, letting out a shuddering breath. She leans her head down to his, until their noses are nearly touching.

“What happens after this?” he whispers, somewhat incoherently.

“You’ll see,” she whispers back. “Your mother is waiting for you. And Yondu.”

That calms him, if ever so slightly. “Will you be there, too?”

She nods. “Always.”

He blinks away the last of his tears. “I love you, Gamora.”

“I love you, too.”

They simply stare into each other’s eyes for a moment longer, before Gamora presses her lips to Peter’s forehead.

The blaster goes off, the noise and flames and pain filling Peter all at once. Gamora’s fingers remain intertwined with his throughout. 

Then something else fills him. Relief, perhaps.

When he opens eyes to the sight of his own bloodied body at his feet, Gamora’s still there, standing with him, pressed into his side. He turns to her and finds stars in her eyes promising an eternity so different than the one Ego had offered him all those years ago. She smiles, and he finds himself returning it.

Yeah. Everything’s gonna be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	29. "The Paris of my childhood."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Your 'your so smooth' story is by far my favorite! Do you take prompts not from the list? My prompt is from the song "How does a moment last forever" from Beauty and the Beast. Mostly the "this is the Paris from my childhood" where Gamora has to go back to her home planet for whatever...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is the Paris of my childhood, these were the borders of my life—in this crumbling, dusty attic, where an artist loved his wife. Easy to remember, harder to move on, knowing the Paris of my childhood…is gone.”
> 
> yoooo time for some more angst,,, but hey, at least everyone’s alive this time :D
> 
> also i wish we had more canon info for gamora’s past/childhood???? smh,,, ((and no i definitely did not project components of my own cultural upbringing on gamora that’s fake news))
> 
> the song is from [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaAtQ7SrpMQ) from the beauty and the beast live action remake!!

Gamora almost turns back to Peter to tell him she no longer wants to go, that she wants to _quit_ , at least four times while they walk through her hometown.

It takes her five tries just to grasp the handle of the front door of her childhood home.

Peter’s constantly switching between reassurances of, “We’ve made it this far already, so if you’re still not completely ready, we can just go back to the ship and try again later,” and, “You’ve got this, babe. You can do this.” He’s been especially reserved today, seemingly out of reverence for their little trip, and she’s not sure if she’s grateful or terrified because of it.

When she finally does get the door open, she just stares at the familiar entry way, frozen for a few moments. He’s standing behind her.

She…can’t do this alone.

So she reaches out blindly for his hand with a stuttering breath, but he must have been expecting it, because he meets her fingers quickly, interlocking them with his own. He squeezes her hand gently.

Somehow, she remembers how to move her feet, and next thing she knows, she’s entering her home, Peter keeping step with her.

Once they’re at least two steps inside, he speaks up softly, “Should I close the door?”

“Yeah,” she says distantly, her eyes trailing over the walls and room before her.

She hears the door close behind her, forcing her senses to more fully acknowledge her surroundings. She looks down at the rack of shoes by her feet. It’s hard to believe she’d ever been so small as a child—her old shoes look so _tiny_ compared to her shoes now.

Instinctively, she kneels down and takes off her boots, setting them beside the rack. Peter copies her hastily, taking off his own shoes. She clears her throat awkwardly.

“Sorry, it’s…” she pauses, standing up. “It’s a cultural thing—you don’t have to—“

“It’s okay,” he says, also standing up. He places his shoes next to hers. “I don’t mind.” 

He seems unbothered, so she turns back to face the room ahead of her. The family room, she had called it as a child, because it was the designated space for simply sitting and spending time with her parents.

She takes a few steps forward, looking over the room slowly. The hallway on her left leads to the bedrooms while the hallway on her right leads to the kitchen and dining area. The wall opposite of where she and Peter entered from is completely gone, destroyed in Thanos’ rampage.

She starts at the sight of neighboring bloodstains on the ground in the center of the room, swallowing against a lump that’s suddenly formed in her throat.

Her mind fills with screams and tearful pleas for mercy, hands holding her back from helping her parents, and she screws her eyes shut, fighting to make it all _stop—_

“Gamora?” Peter prompts quietly, for what she’d estimate to be the fourth time that day.

But she’d asked him to come with her for a reason. She can’t imagine returning to her destroyed home world on her own, especially without Peter, who has somehow mastered the art of grounding her, even when she retreats to the farthest corners of her mind.

She likes to think she has advanced in her ability of doing the same for him.

“This is where…” she’s suddenly speaking without consenting to it in her brain. She shakes her head, letting her words hang in the air.

“Yeah,” is all he has to say about it, and she’s thankful their hands are still together, because she doesn’t feel particularly steady on her own two feet at the moment. She swipes the back of her unoccupied hand over her eyes, ducking her head for a second to take a stuttering breath.

They stand there, silently, for about thirty seconds. She uses that time to gather herself. There is more to her childhood and home than the tragedy; she refuses to let this destruction define her life, even if most of her memories from her life pre-Thanos have faded. She remembers small things—laughing with her mother, playing with her father, simply sitting between them at mealtimes, the love her parents had shared with each other and with her.

(But…their voices have faded, and that’s something she can never get back.)

Once she’s ready, she offers Peter a half-hearted, “I’m good,” and leads him down the hall toward the bedrooms. She’d only just moved into her own room around the time Thanos arrived on her planet. For all of her years before that, she’d slept in her parents’ bed, snuggled up between them.

She takes Peter into her old room, the first door on the left. The door had apparently been left ajar, so she just has to push it a little more to open it completely. She’s greeted by her small bed pushed up against the wall, neighboring her nightstand. On the other wall is a closet where she’d kept her extra clothes and toys. There’s also her dresser and her bookshelf, nearly filled to the brim with books she’d pored over as a child.

A small smile manages to form on her face at it all, the nostalgia warming her anxiety-ridden insides.

“This…was your room?” Peter asks, taking a small step forward to see everything better.

She nods, not quite able to find her voice.

“Wow. You weren’t kidding when you said you were a bookworm,” he teases, gesturing to her bookshelf. She’d never used the word “bookworm” to describe herself (it’s a Terran term), but it’s at least synonymous to what she’d said. “Can I look?”

She nods again, releasing his hand. He crosses the room in just a few steps, crouching down in front of her collection of books. From the titles on the spines, she can tell they’re all written in her native language, so he won’t be able to read all of them (and, honestly, she’s not quite sure she remembers how to anymore, either).

His eyes scan over the small library slowly. “Sorry, babe, but I gotta say it: you’re a nerd.”

For whatever reason, the playful insult breaks through the fog swirling around her brain, and she manages to scoff. “Were you not also a ‘nerd’ when you were a child on Terra?”

(Because from what he’s told her of his childhood dreams of studying space and traveling to different planets, it sounds like he had a pretty strong passion for science as a child.)

“Touche,” he says, turning to look back at her. He smiles, and she returns the gesture. It’s a happy, quiet moment, in a small house on a small planet that ended in tragedy.

So she joins him at the bookshelf, kneeling down next to him. She runs her fingers over the dusty titles, and though she can’t quite make out all the words anymore, they’re familiar.

She lingers on one that she remembers distinctly because of the bright green color of the spine, but she can’t recall the title. She frowns in mild frustration.

“I can’t read English anymore, either,” Peter offers quietly, his voice subdued in a way similar to how she feels. “The language I grew up speaking on Earth.”

He understands.

The books are suddenly more overwhelming than she’d anticipated. She stands up, focusing her attention on the few pictures she had on top of her bookshelf. They’re lying out across the wood, as she remembers simply enjoying looking through them as a child. She gathers them in her hands, sighing at the sight of her parents in several of the pictures. There are even some of her other relatives and childhood friends.

Peter stands up beside her, looking over her shoulder at the pictures. “Is that you?”

He’s pointing to one of a little girl climbing a tree, an adventurous grin on her face. She nods.

“Aww, you were a cute kid,” he says, his smile audible in his voice. “You…wanna take those back with us?”

She stares at them a moment longer before nodding, carefully aligning them in a neater stack.

The rest of their exploration of her room continues like that, finding a few small things here and there that poke and prod at her heart. It’s an uncomfortable feeling— _sentimentality_ —and she’s not really used to it, given her upbringing.

But it’s a welcomed change, nonetheless.

They end up taking some of her old books, other pictures they find, and her favorite plush toy as a child (a Zen-Whoberi doll she’d named “Lala,” because she wasn’t _quite_ speaking age yet when she’d named it, or so she remembers her parents telling her).

Eventually, they make it to her parents’ room, which is even _more_ overwhelming than her own room. It takes her about two steps inside for the memories to surface within her mind again, followed by Peter gently laying his hand on her arm, patience etched into his features. She looks at her parents’ bed once more, the one she’d slept in as a child, before leaving the room without looking through the things left inside.

She makes a point not to look into the bloodstained family room on their way out of the house. The only time Peter lets go of her hand is when they’re strapping their shoes back on, and after that, they’re out of there.

“We can come back another time,” he offers after closing the front door behind them. He readjusts the strap of his bag, overflowing with books (with the pictures pressed carefully between the pages), on his shoulder. “If you ever wanted to, I mean. Any time. Since it’s…here.”

His words hang in the air between them.

“Thank you, Peter,” she says, holding Lala closer to her chest. “For doing this.”

“You did it for me. You always do it for me,” he says, reminding. “We’re in this together.”

And the “this” in the statement can mean a lot of things. She remembers one time he’d (drunkenly) called it “orphan land,” and while it’s unfortunately tragic, it’s very honest. And maybe smiling through the grief is the best way to overcome it, sometimes.

She clears her throat, averting her eyes for a moment. “My parents would have loved to meet you. And the others. Family is…very important, in my culture. Everyone would have been welcome here.”

Which is part of what made everything under Thanos so hard, aside from the obvious reasons, like the assassin training or abusive parenting. Having Nebula as a sister meant something very different to Gamora than either Thanos or Nebula herself, given all of their different backgrounds.

(Though, thankfully, times have changed, and it’s because of Nebula’s recent message to them, ensuring the total abandonment, yet persisting existence, of Zen-Whoberi, that Gamora and Peter are here now.)

Peter offers her a small smile. “My mom would have loved you, too. Our parents would’ve gotten along really well, I think. We could have had some awesome family dinners and stuff, whatever normal families do.”

What a thought. A normal life, spent with Peter, surrounded by both her family and his, two great and compassionate families united in love.

“We shouldn’t linger on the ‘what if’s,” she says, disappointment lining her words, but there’s a smile on her face nonetheless. “We are where we are now because of the tragedies in our lives.”

“I’m just going to assume your parents and my mom are hanging out together in Heaven, or whatever the Zen-Whoberi afterlife is,” he says, squeezing her hand. “So…ready to head back to the ship?”

She meets his eyes with a nod, then turns back to look over her home one last time. A faint breeze picks up, blowing her hair out of the way of her face. She smiles.

“We’ll be back,” she murmurs to the small house, “Mama, Papa.”

When she turns back around, she notices Peter’s a little glossy-eyed, but he simply widens his smile. She returns the gesture.

As they walk back to the ship through her hometown again, she busies her mind with thoughts of old stories she’d been passed down from her friends and family, of history and heroes and love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!!


	30. “I can’t fit into my favorite dress anymore.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: 081 "I can't fit into my favourite dress anymore" with star lord and Gamora please since I can't imagine gamora being like this so I'd like to read one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m an american heathen who spells “favourite” as “favorite”, muahahaha…. ;)))
> 
> i’m glad you sent this prompt in tho!!! i agree that gamora doesn’t seem like the type of person we’d expect to ever really react like this, which made it all the more fun to write, esp considering i’ve had a fair share of moments like this for myself even just in the past year (i fell victim to the infamous college freshman fifteen™ yikes BUT HAVE WE CONSIDERED: gamora endures something similar when joining the guardians bc of the change in lifestyle/diet and maybe bc peter wants to make sure she gets enough to eat,,,,, read on to find out more!!!!)

It’s one of the dresses Gamora had received during their stay with the Nova Corps on Xandar, after they’d defeated Ronan. She’d worn it the day they’d flown off in the “Milano 2.0,” as Peter had taken to calling it at first.

It isn’t very practical for battle, no, but she’d received other outfits for that. This dress is efficient for meeting with government officials for the more “diplomatic” side (if they can even call it that) of their job, as such work is typically allocated to Peter or herself; the others aren’t as… _experienced_ in efficiently communicating with other parties without resorting to violence.

And, yeah, it’d been a pretty slim fit around her waist from the beginning, but she’s never been one to lose or gain any weight very noticeably. But times have changed, her entire _life_ has changed; her eating and exercising are no different.

Honestly, it doesn’t initially strike her as a big deal when she can’t get the zipper all the way up her back anymore because, whatever, it’s just a dress. But there’s an almost sentimental value to it now, as it signifies the time she’d embraced her new life as a Guardian of the Galaxy alongside the people she’d come to happily recognize as her family.

(Peter may have also mentioned it being his personal favorite of her outfits so, uh, yeah, it might have risen in her own personal ranking of her clothes for that reason.)

(Assassins don’t rank their clothes.)

(…Times have changed.)

She really shouldn’t be spending as much time as she is right now, back in her sleep clothes after giving up on forcing the dress to fit, holding the damn thing in her hands with a thoughtful frown. Again, she doesn’t really keep up with her weight because it’s never been prone to changing, given the harsh food-to-work ratio she’d endured under Thanos and Ronan, so, if anything, she’s just _confused_.

Peter walks in on her confusion. He’s already dressed for their meeting with the Nova Corps.

“Uh, hold up, am I ready _first?_ ” he says, gaping at her. “Is this real?”

“Yes, this is real,” she says, still examining the dress.

“That…should not be happening,” he says, closing her door behind him. He crosses the room to stand beside her. They’re in what used to be her quarters, but given certain developments between the two of them, she now spends most of her nights in his room. “Is everything okay?”

She looks at him then, lowering the dress. She briefly wonders what he’d think of it; Peter’s never been one to judge (harshly) for physical appearances, especially with her, but everything going on here—relationships, weight gain, feeling as “hot” as Peter often likes to compliment her—is foreign territory.

“I can’t fit into my favorite dress anymore,” she says simply, holding the dress down against her legs. She watches his face for a reaction.

He appears caught off guard for a moment, eyebrows raised and lips pursed, but recovers quickly. “Oh, the one from the Nova Corps?” He gestures down to it in her hands and she nods. “Aw, man. That sucks. I really liked that dress, too.”

His voice is light, but she can’t help feeling disappointed, too. “I’ve…never gained much weight before.”

“You didn’t gain a _lot_ ,” he says, looking her over, and she feels suddenly scrutinized in his gaze. She holds her arms against herself more tightly, as if to conceal her body. “Don’t worry about it, babe. Everyone’s weight is always changing. I switch between pant sizes every now and then, too. It’s normal.”

Despite his reassurances (which do make sense logically), she can’t help but feel a little… _embarrassed_ , she supposes is the proper word. She tries to ignore the heat rising to her cheeks. “Do you find me less attractive now?”

“What?” Now he looks _really_ taken aback. “I didn’t even notice until you told me!”

She raises an eyebrow.

He lays a hand over his face. “Okay, yeah, bad response. What I _meant_ was…it doesn’t matter to me. I mean, of course, you and your health matter to me, _yes_ , but you gaining or losing weight doesn’t change how I view you as a person. Or how attractive I find you. Does that make sense?”

It _does_ , but this is still so weird and messy to her, nonetheless. Her conflicting feelings, especially this sudden lack of _confidence_ in her physical appearance, disturb her to no end. She tosses the traitorous dress onto her bed.

“After our meeting with the Nova Corps, we can go buy you a new one,” he continues when she doesn’t respond, offering her a smile. “It’ll be like a fun shopping date; I think couples on Earth might do that.”

“Sure,” she says with a shrug, turning back to her drawers to find something else to wear. Fear lingering in the back of her mind warns her that she may not have _anything_ to wear anymore, given her sudden _weight gain_ , but she ignores it. The threat of humiliation upon failing to fit into more of her clothes in front of Peter claws at her, prompting her to rifle through her clothes rather roughly.

But Peter stops her, laying a hand on her arm. “Hey, Gamora, wait. Look at me.”

She turns to him with a small, impatient huff. “Yes?”

“You know I can tell when you’re upset,” he says carefully, reminding. “What’s _really_ bothering you? You can tell me anything, remember?”

“I know,” she says, then pauses. “I’ve just…never dealt with this before, that’s all.”

“Growing out of your clothes?” he asks.

“Gaining too much _weight_ to wear them,” she corrects, but her snap is weak at best. She feels just short of defeated. “I always maintained my weight. Until…”

“Until now,” he finishes for her. “It’s natural, like I said. You’re living on a ship _way_ more now, you can eat pretty much _whatever_ you want _whenever_ you want—since you said that was different, uh, before—and you can’t really do much running or jumping around on a space ship. Kinda goes with my first point. Your body’s just adjusting, that’s all. Nothing to feel bad about.”

She studies him for a moment, turning his words over in her mind. Again, the logic is there, but her emotions are taking a bit longer to catch up. She frowns.

“This is your fault,” she decides, but her voice is teasing. “You always push me to eat.”

Admittedly, she’s gone to bed hungry more nights than she can count in her life (maybe even more nights than _not_ ), but she can’t recall one since joining the Guardians.

“Hey, even a cybernetically enhanced assassin needs her fill of daily nutrients and shit, too,” he says, holding his hands up in surrender. “And we always have enough for everyone to eat their fill.”

That statement’s debatable at best, but Peter’s the type of leader (and person in general) to ensure that those he loves are happy and healthy, even at his own expense.

(Peter also has a habit of not finishing his dinner and offering her what’s left on his plate. It had taken her a while to accept, but they’ve now reached the point where he simply pushes his unfinished food across the table to her and she finishes it off, no questions asked.)

(So, yeah, this weight gain is definitely _his_ fault, at least a _little_.)

Finally, she’s smiling, and relaxes completely under his touch. “I suppose gaining weight is not _horrible_.”

“Yeah?” He grins. “’Cause now I’ll buy you whatever new dress you want after our meeting?”

“Who said I needed another dress?” she teases. “Why not a new blade?”

“ _How_ did my offer to buy you new clothes turn into new _weapons?_ ”

“They’re more practical.”

He hesitates there. “If you’re suggesting we start fighting battles in the nude—“

“Not what I meant in the slightest.”

“—I have no objections. I’ll buy you any weapons you want, just for that purpose.”

She rolls her eyes, turning back to her drawers once more. “I need to finish getting ready, Peter.”

“Fighting with or without clothes, I think you’re beautiful!” he says cheekily, practically grinning from ear to ear.

She ducks her head more closely to her drawers to hide her smile.

(He’s still debating between the pros and cons of wearing clothes into battle by the time she’s finally ready to go.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um yeah so peter is that "did you get enough to eat???" friend esp to gamora and always offers her some of the food off of his own plate sorry but it's canon now bc poor gamora probably most likely definitely did not get enough to eat on a daily basis under thanos and that's not how the guardians roll my dudes
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	31. “If you use up all the hot water one more time, I’m going to ban you to the couch for a month.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Ohh 044 seems like a fun one with starmora please do one with them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who wants some starmora hurt/comfort????? specifically, peter taking care of a battle-worn (and very grumpy and sleepy) gamora :))))

Being a Guardian of the Galaxy isn’t exactly painless, but Peter’s proud to usually report that his team suffers only minor injuries after jobs. It’s partly due to the skills each of them have from their experiences prior joining to the team, so they each know their way through a fight. More importantly—to Peter, at least, because he’s just sappy like that sometimes—it’s because of how long they’ve spent fighting side-by-side now, adjusting their fighting styles to complement each other and decrease the chances of major injuries during battle.

That being said, they don’t always come out unscathed. Their most recent job involved a run-in with some not-so-friendly Kree dudes, given the fact that the Guardians had kind of, uh, totally _obliterated_ Ronan, and though they’d pulled through the fight victoriously, it wasn’t without some injuries.

Despite being only six people, Peter loses track of the Guardians during fights sometimes, and one moment, Gamora had been by his side, kicking ass flawlessly per usual ( _no_ , her being flawless is simply _fact_ , definitely _not_ his opinion), only to then reappear at the end of the battle with more gashes and bruises than anyone else because she just _had_ to be the best out of all of them, per usual (read: she’d helped Mantis, whose skill level isn’t quite up to par with fighting angry Kree soldiers yet, out of a bind). She even had a frickin’ _blaster hole_ in her shoulder!

Being the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy?

Very hard, because they’re all such self-sacrificial assholes, but not impossible.

Being the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy _and_ Gamora’s boyfriend?

On a scale of one to ten, with one being the easiest and ten being the hardest, Peter has found the above to be a ten _billion_ on the scale. 

She’s fearless and proud and stubborn, he gets it (maybe because he is, too, sometimes). But the moment they return to the Quadrant, Peter gently lays his fingers on Gamora’s less injured arm, which is folded up against her chest as she presses a hand to her still very-much-bleeding wound, and he’s ready.

“Gamora—“

“I won’t run away,” she mutters, rolling her eyes, because the number of times he’s had to practically _tackle_ her with the med kit is a little redundant. “But I’m fine.”

“Gamora, if you ever died in battle, I’m expectin’ you to resurrect yourself in the moment just to yell at us about how frickin’ _fine_ you are,” Rocket teases over his shoulder, just as he’s leaving the room.

“I can help ease the pain,” Mantis offers. She’s wringing her hands together as she looks at them with wide, glossy eyes. “Since this is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” Peter says in sync with Gamora. He’s pretty sure Rocket barks out a laugh with a huff of _“Mom and Dad!”_ from the other room.

“I’ll be alright, Mantis,” Gamora says, offering Mantis a small smile. “You should go be with the others and see if they need any help. They can also help you if you need anything.”

Mantis’ eyes flit over to Peter’s briefly and he just nods along to Gamora’s words.

“Okay,” she finally says quietly, ducking her head as she turns and leaves the room.

Gamora sighs, opening her mouth to speak, but apparently even just that movement is enough to jostle something that shouldn’t be jostled, because her face screws up ever so _slightly_ for just a _moment_ and Peter’s glad he didn’t choose that second to blink.

“Alright, come on, let’s go,” he says, moving his hand on her uninjured shoulder to lead her to their room, where they (of _course_ ) keep the med kit.

Several pouty faces and stitches and bandages later, Gamora’s wounds are taken care of. She’s sitting on their bed without a shirt on—not for _that_ reason, mind you—and Peter can’t help the sympathetic sound that comes out of his mouth at the sight of all the wounds he’s dressed across her torso.

She just huffs. “I told you I was fine.”

“Babe, you _always_ look fine,” he teases with a wink. The corners of her lips tilt upward ever so slightly. “Fine as in hot. Not necessarily fine as in health.”

“Well, you look dirty,” she comments, crinkling her nose. She hides a yawn behind her hand. “You should shower.”

“Uh…don’t you want to shower first?” She’s covered in _just_ as much battle shit as he is, easily. “Not that I don’t love seeing you half-clothed in our bed, of course, but you also look like you’re about to keel over at any second.”

“You helped me,” she says softly, her features softening. “You can shower first. I’ll be fine.”

“Debatable, again,” he says, shaking his head, but sometimes it’s best _not_ to argue with an injured Gamora, lest you want to be injured as well. (Okay, maybe not _seriously_ , but injured Gamora is much less patient than healthy Gamora, so Peter’s learned to pick his battles.) He turns to his drawers, then offers her one of his random sleep shirts. “I’ll be quick.”

She nods, unfolding the shirt and carefully pulling it over her head and arms. He resists the urge to help her out, considering her injuries and everything, but she somehow manages to get all limbs through the proper holes.

Once he’s sure she’s settled with a shirt on and all wounds taken care of, he enters their small bathroom and closes the door behind him. As he turns on the water and sets his things out, he hears her call to him over the sound of the shower—

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t use up all the hot water for once, please.”

“I don’t _always_ use up all the hot water!”

“Yes, you _do_.”

 _“_ You don’t have any evidence! I’m innocent until proven guilty!”

He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “If you use up all the hot water one more time, I’m going to ban you to the couch for a month.” 

“I _won’t_ ,” he calls back out to her as he’s sliding out of his clothes. 

Peter _does_ take her words to heart, though, and showers in what he’d argue to be record time. Warm water running over his skin after a particularly gruesome battle is a pretty kickass sensation, he has to say, so he’d rather she get more of it than himself. He dries off in even quicker record time, looking at himself in the mirror for a moment. He sighs at the sight, his skin clear of all the dirt and blood and grime that he’d accumulated throughout the day.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he opens the door, only to find Gamora slumping slightly in the same spot he’d left her, her eyes heavy. She yawns again in greeting.

“That was uncharacteristically fast of you,” she teases, smiling a little. It’s a little dopey-looking, to be honest, probably because of her exhaustion and injuries and maybe even some of the pain medication he’d goaded her into taking. “Why don’t you shower that quickly every time?”

“I don’t like being banished to the couch,” he says, pulling some pajamas out of his drawers on his way over to the bed. He drops the towel to the floor as he dresses.

“I haven’t had a warm shower in _ages_ ,” she says, eyeing him. “Since _someone_ likes to use up all the hot water.”

“Well, let’s fix that now,” he says, fully dressed. He picks up his towel and tosses it onto the bed, then holds his hand out to her. “Your warm water awaits. Shall I escort you?”

She rolls her eyes, pushing herself up from the bed without his assistance. “I just want to shower.”

He retracts his hand then, watching her shuffle toward the bathroom. It’s…an interesting sight, because he’s not sure assassins are typically described as _adorable_ in the way they grumpily pout while walking, rubbing exhaustion from their eyes as they half-heartedly push the door open.

But the warm feelings blossoming in his chest at her little display fade quickly as she stumbles over her own feet for a moment, holding onto the door frame for support. He gapes at her back for a moment, trying to figure out how in the _hell_ someone like Gamora could do something as mortal as _trip_ , then rushes to her before she can close the door.

“Hey, on second thought, how about I help you with that shower?” he offers as lightly as he can.

“Not tonight, Peter,” she mumbles out through another yawn, still holding onto the door. She rests her head against it, her eyes fluttering for a moment. “Maybe another night.”

“No, no, not in _that_ way,” he says, somehow containing the laughter that bubbled up inside at her words. “You just seem really…tired. Come on, I’ll help you wash your hair and stuff, so you don’t have to use your bad arm.”

She tries to glare up at him—or, at least, he’s _assuming_ it’s supposed to be a glare, but it’s hard to make it out through her drooping eyelids—but he gently pushes past her into the bathroom. He reaches into the shower for Gamora’s things, setting them on the floor within reach for him before turning the water on.

“I can do it myself,” she says, turning to him with arms as close to crossed as she can manage with her injury (like, one arm crossed properly over her chest while the other just hangs at her side). “I don’t need help.”

“I _want_ to help,” he says, reaching around her to close the bathroom door. “Come on, it’ll make me _really_ happy. _Please?_ ”

He offers her a pout of his own now, and whether it’s the exhaustion or her own weakness to his pouting (he’s pretty sure it’s become a mutual weakness of theirs now), she just lets it go. She nods her head once with a small huff, stepping closer to him.

“Alright, arms up as much as you can,” he instructs, helping her out of her clothes. He maneuvers his shirt over her head and arms without completely disrupting her shoulder somehow. Her pants and underwear come off more easily, since she wasn’t injured there.

Once she’s out of her clothes, he holds her hand to steady her as she steps over the small step into the shower. She’s able to wash most of her body herself, just taking advantage of him to hand her soap, but he stays true to his promise with her hair, leaning precariously into the shower so he can spread the shampoo through her long waves. He massages her scalp gently under the water (and, to be honest, she’s kind of _totally_ melting into his touch, her eyes closed and corners of her lips curved upwards, _success_ ) before switching to conditioner.

After she’s clean, he turns off the water and helps her step out, meeting her with open arms and a large towel. He’s practically hugging her as he dries her off, and she’s given up protesting by this point, simply watching him run the towel up and down her body.

Minutes later, she’s ready for bed, wearing some of _his_ pajamas (per a sleepily mumbled request, oddly enough), when she perks up.

“I have to brush my hair,” she recalls, but he waves her off.

“Got it covered.” He brings her brush and a hair tie over to the bed, sitting down on the bed behind her. “Then after this, bed.”

She sighs softly. “Thank you, Peter. For helping…with everything. You didn’t have to.”

He drags the brush through her hair gently, carefully working out the tangles and knots from battle. He smiles, though she’s unable to see it. “I told you, I wanted to do this. I like taking care of you.”

Several moments of silence pass between them before she admits, “I like that, too. No one’s ever done that for me before.”

While he’s sure she had people many years ago who did, he understands where she’s coming from. He works out a particularly large knot, sticking his tongue out thoughtfully. “It feels…kinda nice to take care of someone, for a change. Haven’t really had someone to do that for before, y’know? Having people to take care of means you have people; you’re not completely alone.”

“Yeah,” she says distantly.

They resume a comfortable silence then, filled only with the sounds of the brush running through her hair. After he gets a handle on all the knots, he starts parting her hair from the top to do a quick French braid.

By the time he’s weaving the last of her hair together, she suddenly slumps back against him, her head falling back into his arms. He jumps a little bit, looking down at her to see what’s up, but— 

She’s asleep, soft snores spilling from her parted lips. All traces of her previous irritation and grumpiness in her face are gone, instead replaced with a softness that makes Peter’s heart melt a little bit.

“I knew you were too tired,” he murmurs with this dumb smile, simply watching her for a few moments.

Carefully, he turns her head just enough to finish her braid, tying it off with the elastic band. He leans toward their pillows to pull the covers back before slowly looping his arms under her back and legs.

It’s tedious, but he manages somehow, maneuvering her from her position horizontal to the bed to her usual spot (though, given her sometimes erratic sleeping habits, he won’t be surprised to wake up to her completely horizontal, because _what the fuck, Gamora_ ). He slides under the covers beside her, pulling them up to cover her properly. She manages to stay asleep during it all—effective pain meds, for once—only moving to press herself more closely to him once they’re settled in.

Of course, it’s not perfect; the lights are still on both in their room and the bathroom, their towels are definitely _not_ hanging to dry, shit from the med kit is scattered all over the place, and he forgot to close his fucking drawers because he’s got this talent for being a disorganized _disaster_ , but, whatever. He wraps his arms around Gamora and rests his head against hers, deciding to ignore all of it until the morning, because, hey, they both managed to survive another dangerous job, so they deserve a night to just relax, for once in their crazy lives.

(This definitely beats sleeping on a couch.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/ask)!!!


	32. "Prisoner"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: Alternate Universe where Gamora grew up with her family and Peter is the leader of the Ravagers and he comes and takes her as his prisoner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert image of exasperated steve harvey here* 
> 
> you guys really like testing me with these starmora prompts don’t you
> 
> anyway here’s what you requested after i asked myself “what the fuck” for a month and all i have to say is that i mostly stuck to your prompt and there was no explicitly specified age for peter and gamora sooooo this oneshot is Fair, considering
> 
> …oh, and this is a spoiler for the twist i put on the prompt, but this oneshot is based on [this particular headcanon](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/post/162266364756/but-wait-has-anyone-else-thought-about-an-au-where) i made a month or two ago ;)

Peter’s a pretty damn good Ravager.

Well. In his opinion, at least.

Ever since Yondu took him from Earth (it’s been about two or three years now, by Peter’s calculations), Peter’s had to learn a lot about stealing things and firing blasters and even _flying M-ships_ (he’s not allowed to do _that_ on his own yet), and though he’s still pretty upset about the alien-abduction-thing, he figures he should at least try to be the best kid Ravager _ever_.

So when Yondu sends him off on a little challenge on Knowhere to try to steal as much food from vendors as he can possibly carry back to the Ecletor, Peter thinks it’s pretty damn impressive when he comes back not only with food, but with an entire _girl_.

Her name’s Gamora.

“She’s my prisoner,” Peter explains proudly, gesturing to the green girl standing beside him. (He’d always thought aliens were supposed green, but Gamora’s the first green alien he’s ever actually met.) “She was trying to steal the food from me that _I_ stole _first, so_ I stole her _and_ the food instead.”

Yondu says nothing at first, simply looking over the two of them. Kraglin does the same, glancing between them and Yondu. Then Yondu raises an eyebrow. “Why is she handcuffed t’ya?”

Peter looks down at his wrist, which is, in fact, chained to Gamora’s wrist. He glances at her face for a moment, only to find her glaring at him. He quickly turns his eyes back up to Yondu, clearing his throat. “So she wouldn’t run away.”

(Actually, during their scuffle, he’d managed to pin her for a moment—which was _very_ hard, because she apparently knows how to fight _really_ well—and when he’d tried to use the handcuffs he’d stolen from Kraglin the night before on her, she moved too much and his hand slipped and, well, here they are, cuffed together.)

(But he’s not about to tell Yondu _that_ version, no thank you.)

“Are those my missin’ handcuffs?” Kraglin asks from beside Yondu, who just sighs.

“Kraglin, unlock ‘em and let the girl go. We don’t need any extra cargo. One kid’s already enough.”

Yondu turns to leave, but Peter speaks up, “Wait! She’s a valuable prisoner!”

“She’s another mouth t’feed.”

“She’s the daughter of a guy named Thanos!”

At Peter’s words, Yondu stops and Kraglin’s eyes widen. Gamora shifts her feet beside him, standing up a little straighter.

Then Yondu whirls around, placing his hands on his hips. “Ya got a name, girlie?”

“Gamora,” she says, surprisingly proud for someone who’s just been taken prisoner.

Peter has to admit, she’s pretty brave. She’s a little shorter than him and is dressed in all black. It matches her hair, which is also black at the top, then all cool and purple-y at the ends. He’s never seen someone with hair like that before. She also has these weird silver scars on her face that she refused to explain the origin of to Peter when he asked her about them.

“Cap’n,” Kraglin says quietly, “we should let ‘er go before Thanos comes lookin’ for her.”

On their trek back to the ship, Gamora had (grumpily, because she’s a sore loser) explained to Peter that Thanos was this giant purple guy who liked killing people and blowing up planets for fun. He sounds like a typical bad guy, not unlike the old comics Peter remembers reading on Earth.

“But he’s evil, so she’s probably evil, too!” Peter insists, gesturing to Gamora. “So we can’t let her go!”

“We’re not tryin’ to protect the galaxy, boy,” Yondu says simply. “We’re Ravagers. We steal.”

“And I stole her!” Peter says. “Like how you stole me! And you kept me, so we _have_ to keep her.”

Yondu turns his gaze to Gamora, his expression curious. “You in any hurry to get back to Thanos?”

For the first time, Peter watches Gamora’s confidence crumble a little. She ducks her head a bit, her eyes flicking between Yondu’s eyes and his feet. “I’m—I’m a daughter of Thanos,” she says quietly, almost mumbling. “I’m…loyal to him.”

It’s not very convincing, and, if Peter’s being honest, he’s starting to think she’s not as evil as her evil dad. She can still be _good_ while having an evil dad, right?

Surprisingly, that’s enough for Yondu, who just sighs (are his eyes are suddenly a little _softer?_ ) and turns to leave again. “Quill, keep an eye on your prisoner. Kraglin, unlock ‘em already, then come with me. We need to discuss where we’re keepin’ our new…‘prisoner.’”

“Cap’n, are we—are we _kidnapping_ a daughter of Thanos?” Kraglin asks, sounding shocked.

“It’s not kidnappin’ if she don’t wanna go home. Can’t blame her.” Yondu’s already walking away by this point. “Just let ‘er out of the damn handcuffs.”

“Y-Yes, Cap’n,” Kraglin says, pulling the key out of his pocket.

“Ha! You’re still my prisoner,” Peter says, turning to Gamora as Kraglin leans down to unlock their handcuffs.

But all Gamora seems to do is just relax at that, her shoulders drooping and expression softening. “I let you win.”

“What? Did not!”

She smirks, pulling her hands to her chest once Kraglin removes the handcuffs. “Did too.”

“Alright, alright, settle down,” Kraglin says warily, as if a fight’s about to break out at any moment. “Pete, take your, uh, prisoner back to your room while the Cap’n and I figure out where to put ‘er.”

Peter wants to protest, but then he remembers that she’s his _prisoner_ , so it’s his job to watch over her now. “’Kay.”

As Kraglin turns to leave, Peter takes Gamora by the arm and leads her down the hallway to his bunk. She follows unenthusiastically, almost looking _bored_ , but it makes sense; he hadn’t been very happy to be taken prisoner by Yondu.

He leads her into his tiny room, sliding the door closed behind them.

“Is this my _cell?_ ” she asks teasingly.

“For a little while,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes. He lets go of her, pointing to his bed. “Go, uh, sit over there.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“You’re my _prisoner!_ ”

“Because I _let_ you catch me.”

How can someone be so _annoying?_ He huffs, pointing more aggressively with his hand. “Just go sit over there!”

She ends up following his order, dragging her feet across the small space until she’s at the edge of his bed, where she sits down slowly. He crosses his arms over his chest, nodding approvingly. There, she’s finally _listening_.

“Okay. Good. Right.” Peter pulls his Walkman out of his pocket and takes the headphones off his neck, placing them on top of his small dresser. “You have to follow my orders now.”

“Fine,” Gamora says half-heartedly. She looks a lot smaller when she’s sitting, curling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, as if she’s on the defensive.

But something tells Peter that his time with Gamora is going to be _far_ from fine.

* * *

By the end of the week, Peter’s been kicked out of _his_ _own_ _room_ and has to move in with Kraglin, because Yondu insists Gamora gets her own room. Peter thinks it’s ‘cause she’s a girl—the only girl on the entire ship. Whatever.

And Peter thought he could pass off his chores to Gamora, since she’s his prisoner and all, but once again, Yondu intervenes, instead tasking _both_ of them with the same chores to do together, so they can be done more quickly.

(Also, Yondu _still_ threatens to eat Peter, but _never_ threatens to eat Gamora. It’s _so_ not fair.)

But, as it turns out, his time with Gamora isn’t just “fine,” it’s…actually pretty interesting.

After a week of slowly letting her guard down during their never-ending chores, Peter finally feels like he’s getting somewhere with her. She talks more openly about herself, even laughs at his _jokes_ every now and then, but, of course, always reminds him that, between the two of them, she’d beat him in a fight, easily.

“I’ve been training to fight for _years_ ,” she tells him, holding the dustpan in place on the ground as he sweeps dust and dirt and whatever-the-hell-else kind of gunk gathers on Ravager floors into it. “You couldn’t beat me in a _real_ fight.”

“I’m better at shooting,” he shrugs, carefully lining the broom up with the pan to get the last of the dirt. “If I shot you, I would’ve won.”

“Then why didn’t you shoot me?” she asks, looking up at him.

“Then I couldn’t have taken you prisoner,” he says. “Duh.”

“You’re so weird.”

“You’re weirder.”

He pulls back the broom then. She stands up, carefully balancing the dustpan in her hands. “If I’m _your_ prisoner, why am I doing chores for Captain _Yondu?_ ”

“He’s my boss, too,” Peter grumbles, pushing the trash can closer to Gamora for her to dispose of the dirt in. “I’m not the boss of anyone yet.”

“’Cause you’re just a kid.”

“So are you!”

Most of their chores pass in conversations like that, making them go by pretty quickly. Sometimes, Yondu runs out of jobs to give them, and they just lie around until someone tells them to do something else.

“Why do you carry this little device with you everywhere?” Gamora asks Peter during one of these instances of downtime. It’s been about a month since he’d captured Gamora, and he has to admit, she’s pretty cool.  They’re in her (formerly _his_ ) room, lying horizontally on the bed beside each other with their heads hanging off the edge of the mattress. Gamora’s hair is _so_ long; the tips touch the floor.

He’s holding his Walkman up above them, the headphones sitting on his chest. She picks them up before he can stop her, but watching the way she holds them carefully, almost _reverently_ , he can’t find it in himself to ask her to give them back.

“It’s the last thing my mom gave me before I left Earth,” he says.

“Terra.”

“Terra. Earth. Whatever.”

He presses the play button, and music starts to play from the headphones. She brings them to her head curiously, holding them over her ears. She listens for a few moments, her eyes focusing on something on the ceiling before she meets his gaze again.

“The melody is pleasant,” she nearly _yells_ , and Peter can’t help but laugh. She laughs, too, probably realizing how loud she was, then takes the headphones off, handing them back to him.

He lets the headphones rest on his chest again, the soft tones of “I Fooled Around and Fell in Love” filling the silence. He sets the Walkman down next to him on the bed.

“Where’s your mom now?” Gamora asks a few moments later. Her eyes are big and dark and Peter recognizes the hurt in there—the pain of being left alone. He’s a little _too_ familiar with it.

“She died,” he murmurs, shifting uncomfortably. “On the night Yondu took me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

He shrugs. “Where are _your_ parents?”

“They died, too,” she says, turning her eyes back up to the ceiling. He watches her. “Thanos killed them and then took me prisoner.”

Peter presses his lips together. “You don’t have to be my prisoner anymore.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I like being your prisoner better.”

He smiles at that, and she meets his eyes then, returning the small grin.

Then Yondu opens the door suddenly and loudly, enough to startle Peter nearly to the point of falling off the bed. “Hey, slackers, come clean the third quadrant.”

Neither of them move from their positions on the bed, so Yondu’s upside down in their eyes. It makes him a little less scary. Peter groans. “The _whole_ third quadrant?”

Yondu’s expression doesn’t change. “You want it to be the third _and_ second quadrants?”

“No, sir,” Peter and Gamora say together, sitting up quickly. Yondu leaves as Peter turns off his Walkman. Gamora gets up from the bed with a stretch, and for some reason, Peter can’t stop smiling.

(He listens to “I Fooled Around and Fell in Love” a lot more after that.)

* * *

The tiny mattress Peter sleeps on in Kraglin’s room is uncomfortable at best, and downright unusable at worst. He usually tosses and turns a lot (thankfully, Kraglin’s a heavy sleeper) before inevitably passing out from exhaustion, but some nights, he still has some energy leftover that he needs to get out of his system.

On this particular night, he forgets to grab his Walkman on his way out, so he has to hum to himself to get his music fill. As he turns down the hall on the familiar route that will bring him right by Gamora’s door, “I Fooled Around and Fell in Love” is, for whatever reason, the first song that comes to his lips.

He pauses when he passes her door, surprised to find it left open just a crack. He sticks his fingers between the door and the frame, sliding it open a little wider, only to find her black and purple hair poking out from under a pile of blankets on the ground.

“Uh, Gamora?” he asks, stepping into her room. He slides the door shut behind him, approaching her strange position. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?”

“I’m not,” she says, uncovering her face. She looks up at him, completely awake. “I fell off the bed.”

“Are you okay?” he asks, sitting down on the ground next to her head. She shrugs.

“I fall off a lot. I used to get in trouble for it.”

“Oh. Well, you’re allowed to fall off the bed here, I think.” He’s never rolled off in the middle of the night himself, so he’s not entirely sure, but it doesn’t seem like something Yondu would get mad at either of them for. “Why didn’t you get back in the bed?”

“I can’t sleep,” she says.

“I can’t sleep, either,” he says. “My new bed sucks.”

“You can have your old bed back,” she says. “I’ll just sleep on the floor. Since I’m your prisoner.”

“I think prisoners get beds,” he says. “Yondu always gave me a bed.”

“Oh.” She pulls the blanket up to her face more tightly, covering her nose and mouth. “I didn’t always get a bed before.”

Peter lies down on his stomach, laying his head over his arms beside her head. “Is Thanos really bad?”

Gamora lowers the blanket from her face slowly, her eyes searching his for a moment. She nods. “I hate him,” she whispers, as if it’s the biggest secret in the world. “He’s awful.”

“Then why did you say you were loyal to him when I first captured you?”

“He kills people who aren’t loyal,” she explains quietly, eyes wide. “He’ll kill anyone he thinks deserves it. He even trains other people to do it for him.”

Peter blinks. Though he’s come to learn Gamora has many sides to her aside from the cold, yet brave way she acted the first time they met, she doesn’t usually show outright fear. Not until now, at least. “Is that what he was training you to do?”

She nods again.

And he does the math suddenly, the realization hitting him like a giant truck. “Is that why you let me take you prisoner?”

She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers fiddling with the frayed ends of the blanket. “I guess.”

Well. So much for his first big “steal.” He wants to be mad, because Gamora _kinda_ tricked him, but when he looks at her and the way she’s curling in on herself, he just _can’t_ be.

“You’re not Thanos’ prisoner anymore,” he says after a few moments. “You’re _mine_ now. So I’ll protect you.”

She scoffs at that, rolling her eyes. “I don’t need protecting.”

“We can protect _each other_ ,” he offers.

That seems fair to her, because she _almost_ smiles. “Okay. But I don’t want to be your prisoner anymore, either. You’re not the boss of me.”

“Fine,” he says with a yawn, feeling suddenly comfortable on the floor. “Then what are you?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, yawning back. “What else can I be?”

He thinks for a moment. “You can just be my best friend, ‘cause we’re gonna protect each other.”

“I’ve never had a best friend before.”

“Neither have I, but I think that’s what we are because we hang out a lot.”

“That makes sense. Okay.”

And that settles that. Her eyes drooping closed is that last thing Peter sees before closing his own eyes, a sudden wave of exhaustion hitting him after feeling so restless.

Even as he’s falling asleep, “I Fooled Around and Fell in Love” continues to play on repeat in his head, with no sign of stopping anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: IN CASE U COULDN'T TELL BC PETER IS JUST A KID NARRATOR, YONDU KEPT GAMORA BC HE KEPT PETER TO PROTECT HIM FROM HIS SHITTY DAD SO NATURALLY WHEN GAMORA, WITH THE SHITTIEST SHIT DAD, FALLS INTO HIS HANDS, HE'S GOTTA PROTECT HER TOO BASICALLY I NEED MORE OF YONDU TRYING TO PARENT STARMORA WHOSE CONSTANT EXTRA-NESS STRESSES HIM OUT TO NO END
> 
> also this prompt was lowkey creepy sounding lmao but it's all good, clearly anon just wanted me to have fun with it ;D
> 
> anyway did i fucking stutter when i said i wanted a starmora childhood friends au i don't fucking think so
> 
> .....lowkey want to write more of this au


	33. “Our kid is totally the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon: OMG stamora with number 90 please!! “Our kid is totally the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 90\. “Our kid is totally the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me.”
> 
> oh my god this is so late i’m so bad i’m so sorry i don’t even remember what list this is from lmfao
> 
> anyway, inbox is closed so i can actually make a dent in all the prompts waiting in here lsdnvlsbroerbnl
> 
> also hooray it’s time to introduce starmora kiddo #3 since i got another prompt asking for baby #3,,, introducing katherine “kat” quill named after, you guessed it, cat stevens. goodbye
> 
> ((also yes i am convinced that peter quill’s sperm is only capable of producing daughters))

It’s been a long time since the Quadrant’s been completely quiet.

…On second thought, it’s never been _completely_ quiet, but there’s a noticeable difference between the volume years ago and the volume now, three children later.

But if Gamora’s learned one thing as a parent, it’s that silence is hardly a good thing. Mer’s more on the reserved side, so she can be fairly quiet, and while Ari can be a little rowdy, she’s been busying herself lately by watching Rocket tinker ( _no bombs allowed_ is the rule for that) in awe. Then there’s Kat, their youngest, who’s proven herself to be the chattiest of the three, even though she can’t quite talk yet.

And if the girls are all hanging out with Peter, then there _really_ shouldn’t be silence.

So Gamora walks to the communal area she’d last seen them all in, only to find the chairs from the dining table arranged in a circle-like formation beside the couch with blankets draped over them, no girls or Peter in sight.

Until she hears a giggle from behind the blanket wall. 

She approaches the strange setup, kneeling on the floor and lifting the blanket up.

Two mischievously grinning girls, a giggly baby, and guilty Peter greet her.

“Hey,” Peter says, holding Kat in his lap. Ari pokes her cheek, making Kat giggle, which, in turn, makes both Ari and Mer giggle. “Our kids are totally the one who wanted to build a pillow fort, not me.”

A _pillow fort_. That’s a new one. Must be some Terran game. Gamora raises an eyebrow. “And you’re going to put everything back afterward?”

“Uh,” Peter looks to the trio between them, who are conveniently not paying attention to their conversation about cleaning up, “yes?”

Gamora smiles then. “May I come in?”

“There’s a password,” Ari insists, holding her hand up to stop Gamora. “What’s the password?”

“Mommy doesn’t need to give the password,” Mer says, scrunching up her face.

“ _Everyone_ has to give the password,” Ari says. “That’s the rules.”

“That’s a dumb—“

“Hey, hey,” Peter cuts in before a real argument breaks out, because Mer and Ari, even at their young ages, have somehow mastered the art of fighting over _anything_. Gamora understands, of course; she and Nebula _had_ wanted to kill each other for a few years. “Here’s a compromise: you can give your mom a _hint_ for the password.”

That seems to placate them, though Ari’s still frowning. Kat waves her arms around with another giggle and Peter readjusts her placement on his lap.

“Okay,” Mer says happily. “The hint is that it’s Daddy’s favorite food from Terra!”

“’Food’ is a bit of a stretch,” Peter comments.

“No more hints!” Ari says to him. “Mama gets one guess.”

They’d visited Terra a few times since defeating Thanos, so Peter could reconnect with his home world more, and there was, in fact, one food—or, really, _dessert_ —he enjoyed more than anything else there.

“I have my answer,” Gamora says.

“What is it?” Ari asks.

“Ice cream.”

“Awwww, you know me so well,” Peter says.

“Okay, you can enter,” Ari says, nodding.

Gamora ducks her head and crawls into the small space. It’s a little stuffy, but the girls don’t seem to mind. Kat reaches her hands out to her.

“Go to your mama, Kitty-Kat.” Peter passes her over to Gamora, who sets Kat down on her lap.

“What happens next in your ‘pillow fort’ game?” Gamora asks, wrapping her arm around Kat to steady her.

“We’re having a team meeting,” Mer says.

“Oh?”

“Like you and Daddy do, ‘cept it’s _our_ team.”

“We’re gonna fight the _Soviets!_ ” Ari declares.

“The _Sovereign_ ,” Peter corrects. “How do you even know about the Soviet…you know what? Never mind. I’m just not going to ask.”

“We have to strat—strateg—make a plan!” Mer says.

“That’s a good start,” Gamora says, giving Kat her left hand to play with. Kat fiddles with her wedding band. “Does our team have a name?”

“The Avengers!” Ari yells.

“That’s already taken, Ari-baby,” Peter says, poking Ari’s arm.

“We’re the Avengers!” Mer insists.

“Aven!” Kat tries to echo, pulling Gamora’s fingers up to her mouth.

Gamora pulls her hand out of the way just in time. “There’s already a team with that name.”

“But I like their name,” Mer says.

“They’re cool,” Ari says, nodding solemnly.

“You’ve met them, like, _once_ , tops,” Peter says.

“No!” Ari says. “We met them more.”

“And now _we’re_ the Avengers,” Mer says.

Since Kat entered their lives, everything’s pretty much three to two now, so Gamora just gives up. Peter shrugs, probably thinking the same.

“Okay, so we’re…the _Avengers_ ,” he says, as if it hurts him to speak their name. “And this is our battle strategy meeting.”

“Groot is gonna be the Sovereign,” Mer whispers loudly to Gamora.

“Yes, good, Mer, always know the enemy,” Peter says, gesturing to her. She nods proudly. “We need a plan on how we’ll attack.”

“Charge him!” Ari says.

“That’s a bad plan,” Mer says.

“I think,” Gamora says, “one person should distract him from the front while the rest of us attack from behind.”

“Who should be the distraction?” Mer asks.

Kat coos then, and all eyes fall to her.

“That’s Kat’s job now,” Ari says.

“Poor Groot—I mean, the _Sovereign_ —won’t know what hit him,” Peter says, grinning at Gamora over Ari’s head.

“He’s a good brother,” Gamora says, returning the smile.

As Mer and Ari continue discussing (or, really, _bickering over_ ) battle strategies, with Peter chiming in occasionally, Gamora hugs the squirming Kat a little more tightly to herself, pressing a kiss to Kat’s hair. Kat’s their final child (as she and Peter had decided), so Gamora’s been trying to soak up as much time as possible with her while she’s still so little. Watching Mer and Ari discuss, she’s taken by how big they’ve both gotten, though they’re still young children.

But, she reminds herself, that’s not of concern at the present moment. They still have to defeat “the Sovereign,” of course. That’s the more pressing matter, clearly.

“Don’t forget,” Gamora speaks up, “after the battle’s won, we need to clean up this fort.”

“But Daddy said we could sleep here,” Mer says.

“Daddy definitely did not say that,” Peter says, grimacing.

“Yeah, you did!” Ari says, frowning at him.

“Uh…”

“Then Daddy can sleep here with you,” Gamora says.

“But Daddy _snores_ ,” Mer protests.

“No boys allowed,” Ari says.

“Mommy can stay.”

“Yeah, Mama can stay.”

“Totally uncool,” Peter grumbles, wrapping his arms around both girls and pulling them back to him with a huff. They squeal, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. “And here I thought I’d be the coolest parent ever for showing you how to build a fort.”

“Mommy is cooler,” Mer says with a giggle.

“Yeah!” Ari says.

Gamora just smirks. Peter groans.

“Daughters, man. Ruthless.”


	34. "Personal Space"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ashthedragon: Can I ask for one story from the list, too? The " you have no idea about what personal space is and its really distracting when your face is two inches from mine, what if I tunr me head and accidentally kiss you" one?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YIKEA this is from a list a while ago about ways your otp finds each other endearing or something like that so yay for starmora having no concept of personal space hehe
> 
> anyway, here’s some emotional drunk peter and a nose boop aND I SWEAR THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO JUST BE FLUFF BUT ANGST SNUCK IN AT THE END JDNSBFLNARBNABR

Sometimes, Peter needs to unwind a bit.

The team’s first trip to Knowhere set a sort of precedent for them—the others go out and drink while Peter and Gamora hang back, usually to take care of Groot, but also for some (rare) quiet moments for themselves. Occasionally, the entire team _does_ go out together, but if he’s being honest with himself, Peter enjoys his downtime with Gamora and Groot more.

But, again, he _really_ needs a break sometimes, considering how tedious it gets leading a group of assholes. So tonight’s one of those nights when _everyone’s_ out, even baby Groot. 

Mantis watches over him at the bar, feeding him ice cubes from her water (they’ve learned that Mantis plus alcohol usually equals something, uh, just short of disastrous, so, yeah). Kraglin and Rocket are sitting next to them, caught up in their own drinking contest, or something. Peter’s not really sure.

All Peter knows is that he’s standing with Drax on the other side of the room, watching Gamora come out of the bathroom. She joins the group at the bar, exchanging hand waves with Groot and sitting down beside Mantis.

Damn. Gamora’s so _awesome_. Peter’s face feels warmer than usual, but that might just be because of his drink. 

“I love Gamora so much,” he says hastily to Drax, the words running over each other in their race from his brain to his lips. He almost spills his drink, gesturing to her with his hand. “Did’ya know Gamora loves me back? Huh? Did’ya?” 

“You’ve made that very clear to everyone,” Drax says, confused. “You marched around the ship declaring that she loved you not long ago.”

“It was our first ‘I love you’s! I just _had_ to tell everyone,” Peter insists, taking another swig of his… _whatever_ he’s drinking. Alien alcohol doesn’t always mix well with his Terran biology but, whatever, because either way, Gamora, like, _loves_ him. His eyes are a little misty at the thought. “Isn’t love so great, Drax? It makes you feel all…fluffy inside.”

“I do not believe my body is composed of fluff,” Drax says. “But love is a very powerful feeling.”

It’s really sad, though, ‘cause Drax’s true love is gone. And his daughter. Drax was probably a really good dad, Peter thinks. He wonders what Drax’s wife was like; he can’t even _imagine_ losing Gamora like that.

The distance between himself and where Gamora’s sitting suddenly makes itself very apparent to Peter. He watches her back longingly.

“I miss Gamora,” he mumbles, downing the rest of his drink.

“What do you mean?” Drax scoffs. “She is across the room.”

“I wish she would come over here,” Peter says, distressed. “Why won’t she come over here? I need her over here.”

“Just cross the room yourself,” Drax says. “Walk to her.”

Listen, Peter likes to think he has _some_ semblance of pride left when the team views him as their leader, but, really, Gamora’s just so _far_ , and he _misses_ her, so he cries. A little.

Or a lot. Everything’s kind of fuzzy at the moment.

Drax just gives him a funny look. “Why are you crying?”

“Because Gamora won’t come over here,” Peter says, basically _whining_ at this point, but, again, his pride? Probably long gone by now.

“You’re an imbecile,” Drax says, frowning. “Just go to her.”

Peter doesn’t make a move to do anything, but Drax pushes him forward before walking away, in the direction of the others.

Fortunately or unfortunately (Peter’s torn between his love for Gamora and his shame because he’s crying in public for no apparent reason), Gamora swivels on her bar stool to look at him, her expression somewhere between concern and amusement. Peter ignores the people staring at him, roughly rubbing at the tears on his cheek.

Gamora slides off her seat and meets him halfway on his trek to her. He thinks she’s still sober, since it takes her a while to get drunk and her eyes are as clear and pretty as always. He sniffles.

“Why are you crying?” she asks, a tinge of laughter in her voice. She lays her hands over his cheeks, brushing away the last of his tears with her thumbs.

“I missed you,” he says, leaning into her touch. “You were really far away.”

“I was just on the other side of the room.”

“And you’re so pretty.” He taps his fingers to her cheek, carefully tracing her silver scars. “How are you so pretty? ‘S’not possible…”

“Alright, I think you’ve had enough for tonight,” she says, pulling her hands away from his face. She takes his drink in one hand and his arm in the other, then guides him back to the rest of the team.

“Why’s Quill cryin’ _now?_ ” Rocket teases, slurred. Mantis pulls Groot out of an empty drink glass while Drax stares off into space and Kraglin whistles absentmindedly to himself.

“Because we’re leaving now,” Gamora says, looking them over. “Let’s return to the ship.”

Man, she’s even _more_ beautiful when she gives orders. Peter twists his arm in her grasp to grab her hand, intertwining their fingers. She smiles and he goes a _little_ weak in the knees.

“Peter looks as if he is about to faint,” Mantis observes. Groot stares at him with big eyes. “We should go home.”

* * *

Sometime later, they’re back on the ship, and Gamora’s guided him back to their room with one hand on his back and the other holding a metal cup. She pushes him down to sit on the bed and hands the cup to him.

It’s water. He takes a sip.

“G’mora,” he slurs, tipping the cup. She steadies his hand just in time, sparing their comforter from the water that’d nearly spilled. “Gamora, you’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she says, standing in front of him. “Again.”

“You’re really pretty,” he continues. “Both inside and out. You have such a pretty soul. Like my mom did. You remind me of her.”

She hesitates at that. “That…means a lot to me. Thank you, Peter.”

“I love you so much. And your name. Your name’s so badass. Gamooooraaaa…”

He draws it out like a song lyric. She can’t help but smile, rubbing his arm. “Keep drinking the water. You need it.”

But he shakes his head, pushing the cup to her chest. “No, I don’t feel good. I don’t need any more.”

“If you don’t drink more, you’re going to feel worse in the morning.” She leans in more closely, until their noses are nearly touching. She takes his hand, guiding his fingers around the cup. “Drink.”

His eyes are all that moves, searching her eyes, before a dopey smile fills his face and he _giggles_. “You’re so close to me that I might kiss you on accident. You’re in my personal space bubble. Can we share a bubble? Then I can kiss you all the time.”

Gamora sighs softly. “I think it’s time for bed.”

“Can I kiss you first?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Okay.”

Peter pecks her lips quickly, still giggling. “Can I kiss you again?”

“You don’t need to ask permission every time you want to kiss me,” she reminds, because they’ve long since established that kissing is a good thing. An acceptable thing.

“Okay.” He kisses her again, still smiling like an idiot. ( _Her_ idiot, she supposes.) “Again?”

“ _Peter_.” She switches things up, initiating their next, brief kiss. He’s grinning when she pulls away. “Bed.”

“Awww,” he says, slumping. He looks down at the cup of water that’s miraculously stayed upright in his hand and raises it to his lips. She intervenes when he makes no move to _stop_ , apparently trying to down the rest of the water in one go.

She takes the cup from him and, predictably, he screws his face up and lays a hand over his stomach. “Whoa. That was a bad idea.”

“You drank too quickly,” she says. She sets the cup down on the nearest flat surface—the dresser.

He groans. “I don’t feel good, babe…”

“Come on, let’s go to the bathroom,” she says, grabbing his arm. She helps him up, but once he’s up on his feet, he stumbles off to their bathroom himself, grumbling the entire way. She follows a foot or two behind him, stopping in the doorway as he kneels in front of the toilet.

She wonders how many of the others are in a similar state right now. Maybe it’s time the team swears off alcohol for a while. (There’s no way any of them would agree to that.)

As he starts throwing up, she closes the distance between them, settling on the floor beside him and rubbing his back. He coughs and looks up at her.

“Babe, this is gross, don’t look,” he says, then turns his face back down into the bowl of the toilet to continue.

She pats his back. “I’m taking care of you.”

He groans, resting his head on the rim. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Please don’t cry again.”

He doesn’t. Rather, he heaves again, and she sighs. Terrans _really_ can’t hold their alcohol. It’s endearing, but still worrisome, considering how sick Peter gets more often than not. She moves her hand in a circular motion on his back.

Soon, Peter’s reduced to dry heaving. He turns to her with red, glossy eyes, looking just short of keeling over from exhaustion. “I hate myself.”

“You shouldn’t,” she says, transferring her hand to his shoulder. She squeezes it gently. “Because I love you.”

A weak smile forms on his face. He gives her that awe-struck look she’s noticed him give before (strangely enough, when he’s looking at _her_ ). The side of his head rests against the toilet seat, disgustingly, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “Hey. I think I see it now.”

“See what?”

“Eternity.”

Her heart does this weird _jump_ at the word, because the last time she’d heard Peter talk about these things—eternity and immortality and everything godly—they’d been coming off the heels of Ego, trying to make sense of all that had transpired on that awful planet.

But now, Peter’s face regains some of its usual pinkness, the corners of his lips tugged further upward. He shakily moves his hand to her face, poking her nose with his index finger. “ _You’re_ my eternity. Duh. Ego’s stupid. He didn’t show me eternity, I already had eternity with me.”

She blinks, eyes wide. His hand falls to her lap, where her other hand rests.

And then he dry heaves again, face pushed back into the toilet.

“Peter…” She resumes rubbing his back, quietly turning his words over in her mind. It’s likely that he won’t remember them in the morning, but she _knows_ they’re genuine, nonetheless.

(She knows because she feels the same way about him.)

Eventually, Peter’s body settles, and he slumps tiredly into her arms. He’s practically asleep already, and despite the fact that he smells of the bar and alcohol, she can’t bring herself to coerce him into showering. That can wait until morning.

“ _Now_ it’s time for bed,” she murmurs, turning him so she can loop her arms under his knees and back. He rests his head against her arm as she lifts him, carrying him out of the bathroom.

She lays him on top of their bed. He opens his eyes briefly, watching her remove his shoes.

“Babe, I can do it…” He yawns, eyes fluttering back shut.

The next few minutes pass quietly, Gamora prodding him awake (or at least _half_ -awake) to move his arms and legs so she can remove his clothes and put his sleep clothes on. By the end of it, she lifts him up into her arms again and kicks the covers of the bed back. She lowers him to the mattress, pulling the blankets up to cover him.

He sleepily latches onto her hand. “Stay.”

“I just need to change,” she reassures him. “Then I’ll be back.”

He doesn’t say anything, but watches her move around their room, throwing his dirty clothes into the dirty pile and removing her own clothes to go with them. She pulls one of his shirts and a pair of her own shorts on before sliding back into bed with him, only to find him still awake.

He rolls onto his side and throws an arm over her, pulling her in more closely. She opens her mouth to tease him for his need for a shower in the morning, but as he rests his chin on the top of her head, sighing in contentment, the comment dies on her tongue. She thinks of his drunken mumbling about eternity again, closing her eyes.

“’Night, babe,” he mumbles. “Love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers. “Goodnight.”

Eternity. Perhaps it’s not as awful as their experience on Ego’s planet had made it out to be.


	35. the fall (IW SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **INFINITY WAR SPOILERS AHEAD**
> 
> anon: Could you write a Starmora fanfic taking place during infinity war, but once Thanos takes away Gamora, Peter rescues her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> folks,,,, i have,,,, so many prompts in my inbox rn,,, a lot from last year even,,,,, and i’ve procrastinated on them and i am So Sorry but i just. needed to write this iw fic. bc of the Feels
> 
> **iw spoilers ahead!!!! read at your own risk!!**

_“Mantis. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”_

As Nebula’s voice sounds through the intercom on the Benatar, Mantis turns in her seat to face Peter, who’s frozen mid-pace at her words.

He’s holding the Godslayer, hasn’t let go of it since _back there_. His grasp tightens ever so slightly as Nebula continues—

_“Meet me on Vormir.”_

* * *

Gamora laughs, despite the tears in her eyes, because this is _it_ , this is how he _loses_ , _finally_ after all these years of death disguised as mercy and he disguised as a savior, to peoples who didn’t need him, to her _own_ people, who she knows weren’t starving or poor or struggling, but were just too powerful of a threat when they refused to swear their loyalty to him.

She laughs, despite the chill in her bones from the snow falling around them in minute specks, a weather phenomenon that only became beautiful and fun after her family—her _new_ family—had made it a point to play in it whenever they came across it.

She laughs, despite the look on Thanos’ face, the tears in _his_ eyes, which suggest that she is the one who is in the wrong here, not him—but her.

“No,” she says, a quiver in her voice she is certain is not from the cold, “this isn’t love.”

The words repeat in her mind like a mantra, a prayer, an intangible object she can only hope to hold onto when he reaches for her, with the words, “I’m sorry, little one.”

It’s a disguise, another one, selfishness and greed and hatred all hidden under the veil of sadness and grief, and she _so badly_ wants to make him understand that this can’t be love if he is willing to sacrifice her, because he’s a _psychopath_ and because she knows what _real_ love is, and this—

This is _far_ from it.

She reaches for the double-sided dagger that boasts balance in a world of anything but, and tries to end things herself, images of Nebula and Peter and Groot and Rocket and Drax and Kraglin and the people of Xandar and every star in the galaxy burning in her eyes via tears, but the sweet release of the blade embedded in her midsection never comes.

Instead, it’s the magic of the Stones stopping her hands and spiriting the dagger away, and it takes all her willpower to not fall to her knees in that moment.

He grabs her arm roughly, dragging her back toward the cliff edge.

She screams, she fights, she thrashes her limbs out wildly.

The red-faced man, keeper of the stone, watches on in intrigued silence, and she vows to kill him if she could.

Looking to Thanos, her insides burn with the vow she’d made to herself long ago—to kill him, too. 

She thinks—why did she ever run away from Thanos if this was going to be her ending either way?

She thinks—why did she let herself believe that there was a happy ending out there for her at all, after leaving his side?

She thinks—her family did not die for this.

One moment there’s snow beneath her boots, the next there is nothing but air.

Her stomach flip flops in that way it does when Peter or Rocket fly the ship poorly, usually caught up in bickering. Her hair flies up around her in that way it does when she fights. Her arms reach for nothing in that they do when she wakes up flailing after a nightmare, only to be immediately greeted by Peter’s calm smile.

Her tears fall the wrong way—up instead of down—and it takes everything in her power to not think about how Thanos, standing above her and crying and clenching his Infinity Gauntlet-clad fist, is the last thing she will see in this life.

It’s a cruel, cruel way to go.

Until it’s not.

Until her last image will actually be Thanos turning, surprised, as someone attacks him from behind, the familiar sound of cybernetics whirring and metal meeting flesh.

A background sound grows closer and closer—a rocket.

But it’s too late, it’s all _too late_ , until—

Warmth hits her, arms wrapping around her shivering frame, her hair blinding her no matter how hard she tries to look up and identify who caught her even though she knows exactly who it is.

“ _Gamora_ ,” comes the catcher’s choked sob, as he holds her more closely and flies up, farther and farther away from the rock that’d almost been her deathbed.

Her fingers dig into his leather jacket like it’s the one thing holding her back from death itself, and she tries to remember how to breathe, pushing her face into his chest as the air attacks her still-functioning lungs, because she’s alive and her body had been convinced it would be _dead_.

The ground below them is now far, far away and they’re almost level with the cliff that no longer has the red-faced man she’d sworn to kill, but has her sister fighting Thanos directly with a charged sword and Drax yelling out battle cries and Mantis just shooting her blaster from afar with her comfortably familiar, poor aim.

Gamora’s tears resume falling down instead of up, and Peter’s arms tighten around her.

“Guardians!” Peter calls, and for the briefest moment Thanos is incapacitated, everyone falls back as quickly as they can, all with aerorigs strapped to their chests and a wild desperation in their eyes.

It’s the last thing Gamora sees before Peter turns away from Thanos and the cliff, speeding off into the horizon.

She settles for staring up at the bottom of his chin instead, just hoping and praying this is all real.

* * *

They board the Benatar first, everyone following closely behind. Nebula runs to the ship’s controls to get them up into the air and anywhere but Vormir while Mantis and Drax take the other seats.

Peter, though—he slides down to the floor, still holding her, and now that the sound of wind gushing past her ears is absent, she hears his soft cries, feels one of his tears fall from his face to hers, but still can’t find her voice or words.

She manages to reach a shaky hand to his cheek and wipe away the next tear, like he’d done to her not so long ago, before they were seemingly worlds apart, and he just holds her more closely to his chest.

They almost slide across the floor when Nebula gets them up into the air, but Peter holds onto the nearest stable object to keep them in place. Gamora watches him quietly, and he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and she figures it can be for an abundance of things—losing her to Thanos, not being able to fulfill his promise, watching her biggest fears nearly come to fruition.

She wants to say she’s sorry, too. She wants to say he has nothing to apologize for. She wants to say she loves him again.

Instead, all she says is, voice no louder than a whisper, “Next time, I’ll go right.”

And he laughs through a fresh wave of tears, and she thinks that, maybe, there is hope for the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp guess who still isn't over infinity war!!!! this binch!!!!
> 
> come scream about it with me on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/) bc i just got out of school for the summer and i'm Upsetti Over the Infinity War Spaghetti


	36. "break me"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anon prompt: Starmora (if you will still write them) for Break Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof this prompt is from a long time ago but here is some post-iw angst (again)! **major spoilers for iw ahead, as expected.**
> 
> i started writing it before the recent burst of kid!starmora fanart in the tag, but i’m glad i’m not the only one who saw the Potential in a kid!starmora encounter post-iw, hehe.

_I’m not in love, so don’t forget it. It’s just a silly phrase I’m going through…_

Peter sinks into the uncomfortable hospital chair, the music in his headphones drowning out the chair’s creaking. He holds the Walkman tightly in his hand, his gaze on the floor, but his mind light years upon light years away.

He remembers this night all too well. His mind races with the same thoughts he’d had back then, burning questions about the fate of his mother and the fate of himself.

Turning up the volume on the Walkman, he imagines his eyes burn holes into the tile floor, too shiny for a place so dismal. He scrunches his nose against the impending threat of tears, his lips trembling.

Suddenly, in his peripheral vision, the doors leading outside open—the same doors that he’d later run out of, into the neighboring field and up to the Quadrant where the Ravagers lived.

An orange light swells for just a few moments, disappearing quickly. He keeps his eyes trained to the floor, blinking against the harsh light.

Someone’s coming—his grandpa, he thinks, but he doesn’t look up.

The newcomer stops before him, but he doesn’t recognize their boots as his grandpa’s.

Their _small_ boots, shoe size no bigger than his own. His eyes can’t help but travel upward out of curiosity, though they immediately stop at the green— _her hands_. Looking further up, there’s a green face to go with it, the face of a girl he guesses to be no older than him.

She’s just staring at him. He stares back, unsure of what to say.

“Hi, Peter,” she says, with a look in her eyes he’d recognize in anyone of any age.

“Hi,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Gamora.”

She stands no taller than him, despite his sunken demeanor in the chair, and she looks down at his Walkman. His fingers can’t help but curl around it protectively as she reaches a slow hand out.

She pauses the song.

The movement is natural, comfortable, and he’s suddenly overcome with tears for a reason entirely different from the one lying in a bed, _dying_ , just a few doors down.

“Can I…” she starts softly, shifting uncomfortably, pressing her hands together. “Can I sit with you?”

The seat next to him is empty; he doesn’t even remember there being another seat in the first place. He pulls his headphones off and lets them rest around his neck.

“Yeah,” he says, matching her low volume with a quick nod. A tear falls, but he wipes it away briskly with the back of his hand. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

Gamora sits, smoothing out her baggy dress under her legs with shaky hands. Her lips are trembling, too. “It’s not okay.”

Peter sniffles, nodding once more.

But then she leans back and folds her hands thoughtfully in her lap, eyes darting around the hospital setting. “Would you change this night, though?” she asks, glancing at him. “Would things be okay later if they were okay now?”

He considers it—a world where his mother lived, Yondu never abducted him, and he never encountered Ego—and turns to her. “Would they be for you?”

She, too, appears to consider it, subtracting the bad that eventually lead to the good, but comes up empty. “I don’t know.”

They fall into silence then, and he thinks of her, but bigger, an adult— _alive_. He was bigger back then, too; they were both big when they met. They did everything together: save lives, fight bad guys, sing, dance… _everything_. It’s hard to think there was a time before they became the tightknit unit they’d been until the very end.

“You were a cute child, Peter.” She offers him a small smile, as if the universe would reach out and snatch it away if it were too big. He returns the gesture.

“So were you!” he says, and they can’t help but giggle, because everything was awful just a little while ago and now it’s just _weird_.

(Not a bad-weird. Like a lukewarm-weird. Good-enough-weird to beat the bad-weird feelings of losing to Thanos.)

“I like your braids,” Peter says, reaching out a tentative hand to touch Gamora’s hair. “Your hair is such a pretty color.”

“One thing we have over Terrans: better hair colors,” Gamora says, beaming with a childlike pride Peter hasn’t seen since this whole debacle started and they _died_.

He can’t help but frown, though, when he notices the lack of silver markings on her face. He tilts his head, his hand shifting from her braid to her cheek—a familiar gesture, though somewhat strange now as children. “I’m sorry Thanos hurt your face.”

She scrunches her nose. “What?”

“Your scars,” he says, poking the skin just below her eye. “The silver lines that were on your face. You don’t have them yet.”

“Oh, yeah, those,” she says, drooping her shoulders, but then she hones in on _his_ face, poking a finger dangerously close to his eye. “Why do _you_ have a black eye?”

“Huh? Oh, I got in a fight with a kid at school today,” he says. “Or, well, the day my mom died. Which is apparently today. In the afterlife.” He shifts in his seat and retracts his hand from her face. “Hey, question, did I not make it to heaven or wherever the good people go? Going through… _this_ again just seems like hell, y’know?”

“You’re in neither,” she says, retracting her finger. “We’re in the Soul Stone.”

“Okay…that makes… _so_ much sense…”

“I don’t understand it completely yet,” she admits, saving him with her familiar smirk. “But I’m working on it.”

“Another question,” he says. “Why are we kids again?”

“The world around us is bigger and more intimidating when we’re this size,” she says, glancing around the hospital room. “My fear makes me feel this small again.”

Peter isn’t quite sure what she means at first, but then he notices the way her fingers are shaking where they’re ghosting over his wrist, and how she’s gradually leaned more closely to him over the course of this conversation, and the way her eyes keep around the room, as if surveying their surroundings for threats, and _this_ —

This is a _terrified_ Gamora.

He’s only ever seen her like this a few times when they were alive, after the worst nightmares and, of course, most recently upon hearing of Thanos’ quest for the Infinity Stones.

And now that he’s thinking about it, _fuck_ , has he even stopped _shaking_ since their last conversation _ever_ , on freakin’ _Knowhere_ of all places, when he held a gun to her head per her request and Thanos took her away just like _that?_

He can’t quite see it, when he touches her hand, but he _feels_ it—her death, _falling_ , betrayed, abandoned, everything so _cold_.

(God, Gamora was _cold_ ; she’s always quick to feel cold but never like _this_. Thanos made her cold on _purpose_.)

It’s no wonder, he thinks, that he, too, is this small, waiting for his mom to die, because he’s never been this scared since that awful, awful night, his last on Earth.

And Peter can’t help the small child in him—though it physically _is_ him, now—who has to ask, “Was it scary?”

Gamora appears to be conflicted between two ages, too, because she nods more readily than he’s ever seen her do when it comes to fears. “I was all alone. And it was really cold…I—I was so scared,” she murmurs. “That’s why I came to see you, to not—to not be alone anymore.”

Her voice catches on the last few words, and he pulls her into a hug, despite the awkwardness of the chair’s arm between them. “I’m here now,” he says. “I was scared, too, ‘cause I didn’t know what happened to you, except that Thanos… _killed_ you.”

Her grasp on his shirt tightens at that. He embraces her more tightly then, noticing how much _warmer_ she is now, without the cybernetic enhancements running through her body. He closes his eyes, as if to will the fear away. “We can be scared _together_.”

“I don’t want to be scared at all,” she protests into his shoulder. “But I suppose this is better.”

They stay like that for a few moments, settling into a comfortable silence. The Walkman slips from his lap, gravity disconnecting it from his headphones, and it clatters to the ground beneath their chairs.

“Peter, your Walkman,” she says, moving to pull away, but he keeps her locked in his grasp, pulling her even more closely into himself. “Let me pick it up.”

“No, it’s okay, I don’t need it,” he says. “I just need you.”

She relaxes back into his grasp then, releasing a breath. “I need you, too.”

“This is actually making me feel a little less scared,” he says with a breathy laugh, because his heart’s still doing all sorts of things to his chest, but the sense of impending _doom_ isn’t quite as strong as it was a few minutes prior.

“Me, too,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from him.”

“ _I’m_ sorry _I_ couldn’t protect you from him,” he says, because he’d promised himself, long ago, that he would never let this—exactly what _has_ happened—happen. “And when we were so close to finally getting him, I _totally_ screwed it up. It’s all on me—“

“Don’t be foolish,” she says. “Everyone made a mistake to get us where we are now.” 

“I guess so,” he says with a shrug. “I’m just happy to see you again, even though it means everything went to shit.”

She _laughs_ , of all things. “You’re too young to say a word like that. It sounds weird.”

He groans, breaking the hug. “C’mon, you know we’re both really adults. It’s _fine_.”

As she continues giggling, his mind can’t help but wander further, trying to find some sort of meaning in all of this. Sure, they’ve figured out that their fear is what’s shrunk them back to kids, but that only begs more questions, like what happened to everyone else who got snapped away, or is there still some sort of way to beat Thanos postmortem?

“I don’t really wanna be trapped as a kid forever,” Peter says once Gamora’s giggles stop, “but if I’m trapped with you, maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“This is only temporary,” Gamora says, regaining her composure. “We won’t feel this vulnerable forever; it’s a natural reaction immediately after dying that will soon fade.”

She looks down at their joined hands and he frowns.

“There’s gotta be some way we can undo this— _all_ of this, the whole half-genocide thing, everything.” He intertwines their fingers. “I can’t believe this is the end.”

Something about his words must strike a chord with Gamora, because she squeezes his hands hesitantly and turns way more serious for a kid he assumes to be no older than him. “Peter, do you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

Her gaze intensifies. “I can control the Soul Stone. I don’t know how or why, but…when Thanos snapped, I trapped the souls of those he killed here, with me, in this realm.”

“So, that means…”

“You can all go back.” She looks past him, and he turns to where she’s looking—the hallway that leads to his mother’s room.

“Wait, babe,” he opts to ignore how weird and creepy it sounds on his tongue, in favor of the much more pressing matters at hand, “can you go back with us?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I need to be here to save your souls and send you back.”

“Can I get you back from the other side? Like, from the alive side?”

“I don’t know.” 

Despite his trust in her, he feels _very much more afraid_ at this prospect—being apart from Gamora _again_ , separated by entire worlds and realms. His hands shake in hers and she holds them more tightly, looking at him with a newfound determination, as if she hadn’t just been killed by the one monster she’d feared lurking under her bed for the majority of her life.

“Trust me, Peter,” she murmurs. “Please.”

“I do, Gamora, _I do_.”

“I know I asked something similar of you not too long ago,” she says. “And I’m sorry for asking you to make such a promise. But, please, you must go—even if it’s without me.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he says tearfully. “Not again.”

“I’ll always be with you in there,” she touches their joined hands to his chest, over his heart, “as you used to reassure me whenever we were apart in life.”

He tries to imagine a life without Gamora—a _real_ life without Gamora, not just the time between discovering her fate and meeting his own. It only rattles him further, but at the same time, he thinks of Mantis and Drax crumbling to ash before him, along with the countless others sprinkled throughout the universe, whose deaths may be preventable, if he goes.

So, he takes a deep breath.

“Can you at least go with me,” he murmurs, “back there, to my mom’s room? I don’t want to do it alone.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says. “More than anything.”

She leans in closer, pressing a kiss to his forehead. He closes his eyes at the contact, only to find a deep orange shade behind his eyelids rather than the usual black.

When he snaps his eyes open, he’s looking at an adult Gamora, and judging by her relieved smile, he knows he’s back to normal, too.

“We’re cured,” he jokes, but it falls flat.

She stands, still holding his hands, thus pulling him up with her. “It’s time.”

“Walk with me, please,” he whispers, because he’s going to maximize what time he has left with her, whether it be years or mere _seconds_ , depending on what happens on the other side. “I know you already said you would, but…”

“Always,” she whispers back. “We will meet again.”

They walk down the hall, hand in hand.

* * *

Sometime later, somewhere between a heartbeat and a lifetime, Gamora makes the same commute once more, her childhood boots squeaking against the tile floors of the Terran hospital, her arrival announced by an orange glow.

Peter, black-eyed and young, looks up at her only when she stands before him, pausing his Walkman.

“Hi, Peter,” she says.

“Gamora,” he says. “We—we lost again.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m fixing it.”

The Walkman slips from his hands to the floor.

She doesn’t move to pick it up this time, nor does she sit beside him. Instead, she places a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll try again,” she says. “Over and over until we win.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp i'm obsessed with the idea of our heroes being trapped in a time loop until they can defeat thanos can u tell?? i actually started writing a fic just about this time loop scenario and didn't finish it but basically gamora kept using the soul stone to reverse the deaths and stuff and anyway maybe i'll finish it one of these days
> 
> come chit chat it up with me on [tumblr](http://pikapegasus.tumblr.com/)


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